FIRST MOTORIST IN ENGLAND.

Clutha Leader, Volume XL, Issue 40, 18 November 1913, Page 6

FIRST MOTORIST IN ENGLAND.

DEATH OF MR EVELYN ELLIS. The first man to own and drive a motor-car in England, Mr Evelyn Ellis, uncle of Lord Howard de Walden, has just died at Plymouth at the age of 71. It was in June, 1895. that Mr Ellis brought his ear to England. It was a 5-h.pi two-cylinder Paahard. He had purchased! it in Franc© the previous year. England was just becoming interested in the new locomotion which was creating much excitement in Paris. In 1895 Mr Shaw Lefevre was about to bring in a Bill for the regulation of light locomotives, but the resignation of the Government prevented him. It was then that Mr ElHs decided to bring his car to England, hoping that he might be summoned by the police and thus draw public attention to mechanical transit. Mr Frederick R. Simma the originator of the Automobile Club, once related of one of the first English journeys, made in this car: "We arrived in front of the entrance hall to Mr Ellis'iiouse beyond Datchet at 5.40, thus completing our most enjoyable journey of 56 miles, the first ever made by a petroleum motor carriage in this country, in ohr" 32min. exclusive of stoppages. The average speed was 9.84 miles per hour. "In every place we passed through we were not unnaturally the objects of a great deal of:-.curiosity. Whole villages turned out to behold, openmouthed, the new marvel of locomotion. The departure of coaches was delayed to enable their passengers to have a look at our horseless vehicle."

Mr Ellis one© said of his early experiences in a drive from Windsor to Malvern: "One old stone-brekker threw -down his hammer and threw up his arms in amazement as he saw the carriage approaching him, and said, 'Well, I'm blessed if Mother Shipton's prophecy ain't corn* true! Hero comes a carriage without a horse.' " Mr Ellis' first car, like those,of today, had four wheels, but they were shod -with fiolid rubber tyres. The last heard of this car, a year or t\w ago, was'that .it was doing duty as a fire incline-. ' King bad lie first rid® in a tWS6MW W « 9ltMSjpt *f W W