• Wolseley Motor Car Co Ltd

Herbert Austin of The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Co Ltd became interested in automobiles due the seasonality of the sale of sheep-shearing machinery. Austin built a version of a car designed by Léon Bollée and then, as the British rights had already been acquired, he determined to produce a design of his own. In 1897 the Wolseley Autocar No.1 was launched but none were sold. The Wolseley Voiturette followed in 1899 and a further four-wheeled car in 1900. The production of the Voiturette finally got underway in 1901, by which time the board had lost interest in the nascent motor industry. At this point Vickers, Sons & Maxim bought the business as an entry point into the industry. Hiram Maxim knew Herbert Austin, having consulted him on the development of flying machines in the 1890s. The Wolseley Tool & Motor Car Co of Adderley Park Birmingham, was incorporated in 1901 with a capital of £40,000 to manufacture motor cars and machine tools. The managing director was Herbert Austin

In 1905 Wolseley purchased the goodwill and patent rights of Siddeley Autocar Co (est. 1902) and appointed Siddeley as manager of Wolseley to succeed Austin. Siddeley promptly replaced Austin's horizontal engines with the now conventional upright engines and brought his associate Lionel de Rothschild to the board. The refusal to use new vertical engines in his cars prompted Austin to leave The Wolseley Tool & Motor Car Co after his five-year contract ended and he went on to found The Austin Motor Co Ltd. By the end of 1906 the company had made more than 1,500 cars and become Britain’s largest motor manufacturer. A period of unprofitability followed and the head office moved briefly to London from Birmingham, the Crayford works in Kent were closed, the production of commercial vehicles and taxicabs was dropped and Siddeley and Rothschild resigned from the board in 1909. Subsequently the company’s profits revived and the Adderley Park factory was extended in 1912-14. Wolseley manufactured a wide range of products, not only cars but also buses for Birmingham Corporation, motor boat and submarine engines, fire engines, special vehicles for the War Office, machine tools, petrol-electric railcar engines and petrol narrow-gauge railway locomotives. From 1912 lorries and other commercial vehicles were supplied.

In 1907 The Wolseley Tool & Motor Car Co became interested in the design of aero engines, initially for dirigible airships. Initially it produced a 30 hp upright 4-cylinder water-cooled aero-engine in 1908 and later a 60hp V8-cylinder aero engine was fitted to a Voisin biplane in 1909. In 1911 the airship Mayfly was fitted with Wolseley engines. The company was renamed Wolseley Motors Ltd in 1914 and upon the outbreak of the First World War was contracted to provide cars for staff officers and ambulances and later produced a wider range of armaments and war supplies including 3,600 motor cars and lorries, 4,900 aero engines (largely Renault, Royal Aircraft Factory and Hispano-Suiza models) and spare parts, 760 aeroplanes, 600 sets of aeroplane wings and tailplanes, 6,000 airscrews, bombs, shells and naval firing gear. After the war no further aero engines were built and Wolseley began large-scale manufacture of inexpensive cars, taking over and extending Vickers’ Ward End munition works, absorbing Vickers’ related subsidiaries and departments and planning a new showroom and offices in London's Piccadilly. In 1918 Wolseley also began a joint venture in Tokyo, with Ishikawajima Shipbuilding & Engineering, producing the first Japanese-built Wolseley car in 1922. In 1949 the Japan venture was reorganised as Isuzu Motors.

However, the government’s withdrawal of contracts, taxation of excess wartime profits, a moulders' strike and general trade slump meant orders were cancelled and several years of losses followed. By 1926 the company was bankrupt. Auctioned by the receivers in 1927 it was purchased personally by William Morris, later Viscount Nuffield, for £730,000 and incorporated as a new company, Wolseley Motors (1927) Ltd. The name was later simplified to Wolseley Motors Ltd and production consolidated at the Ward End works. Part of the Adderley Park plant, to which Morris Commercial Cars moved, was closed. Morris re-established the Wolseley focus on luxury cars, re-tooled the works and in 1928 introduced the Wolseley Messenger and subsequently a range of single overhead-camshaft type vertical shaft engines. In 1931 the firm also built a 9-cylinder geared air-cooled A R radial aero engine, initially called the Morris engine. Morris transferred his personal ownership of Wolseley to Morris Motors Ltd in 1935 and soon afterwards all Wolseley models were badge-engineered Morris designs.