Charles Stewart Rolls was a British pioneer in car and airplane development. He was born on August 27, 1877, and died on July 12, 1910. He helped start the Rolls-Royce car company with Henry Royce. He was the first British person to die in an accident involving a powered airplane. During an air show in Bournemouth, the tail of his airplane broke off, causing the crash. He was 32 years old when he died.

Early life

Rolls was born in Berkeley Square, London, as the third son of the 1st Baron Llangattock of the Rolls family and Lady Llangattock. Although he was born in London, he kept a close connection to his family’s ancestral home, The Hendre, a country house near Monmouth in Monmouthshire, Wales. After attending Mortimer Vicarage Preparatory School in Berkshire, he studied at Eton College. His growing interest in engines earned him the nickname "dirty Rolls." Although his father disliked his choice of education, he still supported him.

In 1894, he attended a private school in Cambridge, which helped him gain admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1895. There, he studied mechanical and applied science. In 1896, at age 18, he traveled to Paris to purchase his first car, a Peugeot Phaeton, and joined the Automobile Club of France. His Peugeot is believed to have been the first car in Cambridge and one of the first three cars in Wales. An early supporter of motor vehicles, he joined the Self-Propelled Traffic Association, which fought against rules limiting motor vehicles under the Locomotive Acts. He also became a founding member of the Automobile Club of Great Britain, which merged with the Association in 1897.

Rolls was an active cyclist and participated in bicycle racing at Cambridge. In 1896, he earned a Half Blue, and the following year, he became captain of the Cambridge University Bicycle Club.

Rolls graduated from Cambridge in 1898 and worked on the steam yacht Santa Maria before joining the London and North Western Railway in Crewe. However, his strengths were in sales and promoting motoring rather than engineering. In January 1903, with £6,600 provided by his father, he opened one of Britain’s first car dealerships, C. S. Rolls & Co., located in Lillie Hall, Fulham. The dealership imported and sold French Peugeot and Belgian Minerva vehicles.

Partnership with Royce

Rolls met Henry Royce through a friend, Henry Edmunds, who was also a director of Royce Ltd. Edmunds showed Rolls Royce's car and arranged a meeting between Rolls and Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on May 4, 1904. Although Rolls usually preferred cars with three or four cylinders, he was impressed by Royce's two-cylinder car, the Royce 10. On December 23, 1904, Rolls agreed to buy all cars Royce could produce. These cars would have two, three, four, or six cylinders and would be labeled as Rolls-Royces.

The first Rolls-Royce car, the Rolls-Royce 10 hp, was shown at the Paris Salon in December 1904. Early advertisements focused more on the name "Rolls" than "Royce." In 1906, Rolls and Royce officially formed a partnership by creating Rolls-Royce Limited. Rolls was named Technical Managing Director and received a salary of £750 each year plus 4% of profits over £10,000. Rolls provided money and business skills to support Royce's technical knowledge. In 1907, Rolls-Royce Limited purchased C. S. Rolls & Co.

Rolls worked hard to promote the quiet and smooth performance of Rolls-Royce cars. In late 1906, he traveled to the United States to advertise the new models. By 1907, the company was winning awards for the quality and reliability of its cars. However, by 1909, Rolls was no longer as interested in the business. At the end of the year, he left his position as Technical Managing Director and became a non-executive director.

Pioneer aviator

Rolls was a pioneer aviator who started as a balloonist, making over 170 balloon flights. In 1903, he won the Gordon Bennett Gold Medal for the longest single flight time.

By 1907, Rolls became more interested in flying and asked Royce to design an airplane engine. He became the second British person to fly in an airplane. On October 8, 1908, Wilbur Wright piloted Rolls during a flight from Camp d'Auvours, which is 11 kilometers east of Le Mans, France. The flight lasted four minutes and twenty seconds. Rolls later purchased one of six Wright Flyer airplanes built by Short Brothers with permission from the Wright Brothers. Starting in October 1909, he made more than 200 flights in this airplane.

In 1901, Rolls co-founded a ballooning club with Frank Hedges Butler. This club later became the Royal Aero Club. In March 1910, Rolls became the second person in the club licensed to fly an airplane.

On June 2, 1910, Rolls made the first nonstop flight across the English Channel in both directions, taking 95 minutes. For this achievement, which included the first eastbound flight across the English Channel, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club. A statue in Monmouth honors this flight, and another statue, created by Kathleen Scott, is located in Dover.

Death

On July 12, 1910, at the age of 32, Charles Rolls died in an air crash at Hengistbury Airfield in Southbourne, Bournemouth. The accident happened when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off during a flying display. He was the first British person to die in an air crash involving a powered airplane, and the eleventh person worldwide to die in such an accident. His death was also the first fatality from a powered airplane crash in the United Kingdom.

Charles Rolls is buried in the churchyard of St Cadoc's Church in Llangattock-Vibon-Avel, where many members of his family are also buried in family tombs. His grave is located near Llangattock Manor and has an inscription. A statue of him, showing him holding a model of a biplane, was placed in Agincourt Square, Monmouth. Another memorial was unveiled in 1981 at St Peter's Catholic School in Bournemouth, which was built on the site of Hengistbury Airfield. A stained-glass window in All Saints' Church in Eastchurch, on the Isle of Sheppey, is dedicated to both Charles Rolls and fellow aviation pioneer Cecil Grace.

Memorials to Charles Rolls include:
– A statue in Monmouth
– A statue in Dover
– The graves of the Rolls family in Llangattock-Vibon-Avel, Monmouthshire
– A photograph of Charles Rolls from 1910
– A memorial window by Karl Parsons in Eastchurch, Kent

A new memorial to Charles Rolls was dedicated on July 12, 2022, at Hengistbury Head in Southbourne, Dorset, between the car park and the Hiker café. This date, time, and location matched the day of his crash in 1910, which occurred at an airfield that is now known as St Peter's School.