Thursday 22nd August 1963

Britain’s most successful car tycoon, William Morris, aka the Lord Nuffield who gave away over £30 million to worthy causes, died aged 85. In 1902 he had opened what eventually became the first Morris Garage in Oxford, initially servicing and repairing bicycles and then cars. Ten years later he began car-manufacturing from a factory in Cowley, Oxfordshire. Inspired by the example of Ford in America, he pioneered production-line assembly in Britain. Rapid expansion followed in the years after World War One, with the opening or acquisition of numerous factories and bases in Oxford, Abingdon, Birmingham and Swindon. By the mid 1940s he was the richest self-made man in Britain.