To celebrate the 144th birthday of The Honourable Charles Stewart Rolls, the company’s co-founder and co-namesake, the automaker took a Ghost on a pilgrimage to London to visit some of the sites associated with the man’s life. The first stop was at 35 Hill Street, Mayfair, in London where, on August 27, 1877, Charles Stewart Rolls was born. The third son of Lord and Lady Llangattock, he was born into a life of privilege and received the finest education. His partner, Henry Royce, by contrast, was not and at the age of just 10 started working as a telegram delivery boy. He worked at the Mayfair Post Office, meaning he may well have delivered a telegram to his future business partner’s family before they ever met.
Next, the Ghost stopped at 119 Picadilly, which was home to the Royal Aero Club until 1961. Co-founded by Rolls in 1901, it was here that he began his flying career as a balloonist. In his lifetime, he flew more than 170 times and earned the Gordon Bennett Gold Medal in 1903 for the longest sustained time aloft in a hot air balloon.
By 1910, he was on to powered flight and earned himself only the second pilot’s license ever given out in England. Later that same year, he would become the first Englishman to fly across the English Channel by airplane and the first person ever to fly from England to France and back again non-stop.
Rolls also co-founded the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) in 1877 (above), which is the Ghost’s next stop. It was thanks to this club that he finally met his business partner Henry Royce in May 1904. Finally, the Ghost made a stop at 14-15 Conduit Street, which was the West End headquarters of Rolls-Royce Ltd for most of the 20th century. From 1905 until his untimely death in a plane accident in 1910, Rolls’ had his office at this location, which was honored with an English Heritage Blue Plaque in 2010.
