Sunday 18th July 1954

Sir Ernest W Petter, who with his brother Percival W Petter in 1895 built the first internal combustion engined automobile in Great Britain, died in New Milton, England, aged 81 – their Yeovil, Somerset venture ended in 1898 after about a dozen varied vehicles had been produced. The ‘Petter Horseless Carriage’ used a converted four-wheel horse-drawn phaeton, a 3 hp (2 kW) horizontal oil engine, and had a top speed of 12 miles per hour (19 km/h). It weighed 9 cwt (457 kg) including the 120 lb (55 kg) of the Petter engine with its flywheel and side bars. In 1915, the Petters constructed the first British seaplane, the Short Type 184 to take part in a naval battle. Ernest Petter was chairman of the Petters Limited engineering company from which Westland Aircraft was separated in 1935. Petter was knighted in 1925. He retired the following year. In 1938, he built The Fort, a large manor house in Comox Valley on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.