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W. O. Bentley
Photo: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons12

W. O. Bentley

English engineer (1888–1971)

Walter Owen Bentley, (16 September 1888 – 13 August 1971) was an English engineer who founded Bentley in London. He was a motorcycle and car racer as a young man.2

From Wikipedia’s article on W. O. Bentley (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Sep 16, 1888, died Aug 13, 1971.1

About

After making a name for himself as a designer of aircraft and automobile engines, Bentley established his own firm in 1919. He built the firm into one of the world's premier luxury and performance auto manufacturers, and led the marque to multiple victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After selling his namesake company to Rolls-Royce in 1931, he was employed as a designer for Lagonda, Aston Martin and Armstrong Siddeley.

From Wikipedia’s article on W. O. Bentley, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Early life and education

  • Date not recordedClifton College3
  • Date not recordedKing's College London3

Bentley was born on 16 September 1888, in Hampstead, London. He was the youngest of nine children. His father Alfred Bentley was a retired businessman and his mother Emily (née Waterhouse), daughter of T. G. Waterhouse, was born in Adelaide, Australia. As the son of a prosperous family he was privately educated at Clifton College in Bristol from 1902 until 1905, when at the age of 16 he left to start work as an apprentice engineer with the Great Northern Railway at Doncaster Works.

Locomotives

The five-year premium apprenticeship with the Great Northern, which cost his father £75, taught Bentley to design complex railway machinery and also gave him practical experience in the technical procedures to cast, manufacture, and build it. He later recalled: "The sight of one of Patrick Stirling's eight-foot singles could move me profoundly." While with the Great Northern, he came close to realising his childhood ambition to drive one of their Atlantic express locomotives, when at the end of his apprenticeship he acquired footplate experience as a second fireman on main-line expresses. "My longest day", he said, "was London to Leeds and back, on the return journey doing Wakefield to King's Cross non-stop for 175 miles. This was a total day's run of 400 miles, entailing a consumption of about seven tons of coal, every pound of it to be shovelled. Not a bad day's exercise." He completed his apprenticeship in the summer of 1910 but decided that the railways did not offer him enough scope for a satisfying career.

Motorcycles

In 1909 and 1910, Bentley raced Quadrant, Rex, and Indian motorcycles. He competed in two Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races, on a Rex in 1909 and as a member of Indian's factory team in 1910. He did not finish in either event; in 1910, his Indian's rear tyre burst on the second lap.

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Entering the automobile industry

In 1912, Bentley joined his brother, Horace Millner Bentley, in a company called "Bentley and Bentley" that sold French Doriot, Flandrin & Parant cars. Dissatisfied with the performance of the DFPs, but convinced that success in competition was the best marketing for them, Bentley was inspired by a paperweight to have pistons made for the engine in aluminium alloy. Fitted with the alloy pistons and a modified camshaft, a DFP took several records at Brooklands in 1913 and 1914.

Aero engines

At the outbreak of World War I, Bentley knew that using aluminium alloy pistons in military applications would benefit the national interest: they improved power output and ran cooler, allowing higher compression ratios and higher engine speeds. As security considerations prevented his broadcasting the information to engine manufacturers, he contacted the official liaison between the manufacturers and the Navy. That man, Commander Wilfred Briggs, would be his senior officer throughout the war.

Commissioned in the Royal Naval Air Service, Bentley was sent to share with manufacturers the knowledge and experience he had gained from the modifications to the engines of the DFP cars he sold in Britain. Following his first consultation, which was with the future Lord Hives at Rolls-Royce, the company's first aero engine, named the Eagle, was designed with pistons of aluminium instead of cast-iron or steel. Bentley next visited Louis Coatalen at Sunbeam, with the result that the same innovation was used in all their aero engines.

Bentley also visited Gwynnes, whose Chiswick factory made French Clerget engines under licence, and he liaised between the squadrons in France and Gwynnes' engineering staff. When they proved unwilling to implement Bentley's more important suggestions the Navy gave him a team to design his own aero engine at the Humber factory in Coventry. Designated the BR1, Bentley Rotary 1, the engine was fundamentally different from the Clerget except in the design of the cam mechanism, which was retained to facilitate production. A prototype was running in the early summer of 1916. The bigger BR2 followed in early 1918.

In recognition, Bentley was awarded the MBE. After he was invited in 1920 to make a claim, which the Clerget licensees contested unsuccessfully, the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors awarded him £8,000.

From Wikipedia’s article on W. O. Bentley (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: racing automobile driver, entrepreneur, automotive engineer, engineer, car designer, inventor.5

Theoretical engineering study, taxi company employment

After he studied theoretical engineering at King's College London, he took employment with the National Motor Cab Company, where his several duties included overseeing the maintenance of the fleet's 250 Unics. He was fascinated by the cabbies' ingenuity at fiddling the meters.

From Wikipedia’s article on W. O. Bentley (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

  • BornSep 16, 1888, London6
  • DiedAug 13, 1971, Woking7
  • CitizenshipUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom8
  • SpouseLeonie Gore married 19149

Bentley married three times and had no children. In 1914, he married Leonie Gore, daughter of Sir St George Ralph Gore, ninth baronet of Magherabegg. She died in the Spanish flu epidemic in 1919. In 1920, Bentley married Poppy (Audrey Hutchinson) (1895-1981), a fun-loving society woman who disliked factories (Bentley was said to love spending time in the workshop). They divorced soon after the business was sold in 1931. In 1934 Bentley married Margaret Roberts Hutton, née Murray; Margaret survived him by some 18 years.

Bentley died on Friday, 13 August 1971, shortly before his 83rd birthday, in Woking, Surrey. The 82 year old was, from 1947 until his death in 1971, patron of The Bentley Drivers' Club.

Bentley was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1995.

From Wikipedia’s article on W. O. Bentley (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Awards

  • Date not recordedMember of the Order of the British Empire10

Sources

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