Rowland Smith
Rowland Smith ( -1979), founder of Rowland Smith Motors
1899 Born at St. Pancras the son of George Herbert Smith, Cycle and Motor manufacturer and dealer.
1932 News item. [1]
Rowland Smith buys and sells motor cars and motor cycles mainly through the advertisement columns of The Autocar and The Motor Cycle. Nothing remarkable about that, you may say. But how many young men of thirty are there capable of building up in this way a business employing about sixty men, and who can run a splendid Rolls-Royce for the few hours they steal away from the office? Go there to enquire about a car and you will mistake him for one of his junior salesmen, so quiet and unassuming is he. Meet one of his fellow-directors, a charming little lady who hides a keen business acumen behind an ultra smartness of quite another character.
And how has their success been achieved? Why, sound common sense, courtesy, fair treatment, and sticking to it making the business their pleasure and by counting the hours spent away from it sheer waste. All work and no play may make most jacks dull boys - but to these two young people of Hampstead work is play.
1939 Living at 4 Wildwood Rise, Hendon, a Dairy Farmer,
1946 Married at Hendon to Freda Gertrude Duker
1961 Purchases Roll Royce Silver Cloud II (Reg No: 997 UXB) and re-plates it as Reg No. RSM 1. Car in existence in 2007.[2]
1964 'Mr. Rowland Smith is the principal of Rowland Smith Motors, Ltd., Hampstead. and proprietor of the Grand Hotel, Torquay. Nearly four years ago he bought the 5,600-acre Churston Estate'.[3]
1979 December 08th. Died, of Coleton Fishacre, Kingswear.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Autocar 1932/06/03
- ↑ Bonham's Auction 2007
- ↑ Torbay Express and South Devon Echo - Tuesday 04 August 1964