SIR HENRY ROYCE: “Rub Out, Alter, Improve, and Refine.”

In honour of the 160th anniversary of Sir Henry’s birth, Rolls-Royce explores the man behind the famous quote in an effort to learn more about the man behind the phrase. Why did he spend his whole life trying to be the best he could be? How did his constant (some might say obsessive) pursuit of excellence show up at work and at home?

Royce had a disadvantaged upbringing due to his family’s financial situation. He was born into a family of five in 1863, and they were already struggling financially. The situation became even more dire when his miller father was declared bankrupt and sentenced to prison under the laws of the time.

Royce’s persona was shaped in this bleak environment. Nonetheless, he was resolved to better himself, and by the time he was 10, he had moved to London and was working as a newspaper vendor and then a telegraph delivery boy.

SIR HENRY ROYCE WITH AN EXPERIMENTAL ROLLS-ROYCE CAR, 6EX

With his aunt’s help, he was able to acquire a coveted apprenticeship at the Great Northern Railway (GNR) workshops in Peterborough, and everything seemed to be going in his favour. He is visibly and immediately at home in this setting, revealing his innate talent for design and competence with tools and materials. Three miniature brass wheelbarrows he fashioned in his youth are indicative of the high quality of his work and his commitment to excellence that would characterise the rest of his life.

After two years, Royce’s determination to better himself was cut short when his aunt was unable to afford his annual apprenticeship fee. Royce was unfazed and went back to London in 1881 to start working for the Electric Lighting and Power Generating Company (EL&PG).

The practical considerations of his life led him to abandon classical engineering in favour of the new discipline of electricity. There were no certifications to earn or exams to pass because the electrical industry was so young at the time. So, unlike in the field of engineering, Royce’s lack of official degrees did not hold him back.

1922 ROLLS ROYCE

In 1882, the EL&PG, by then renamed the Maxim-Weston Electric Company, sent him to work for its subsidiary in Lancashire as First (Chief) Electrician, responsible for street and theatre lighting in the city of Liverpool, because of his fascination with the subject, his already formidable work ethic, and his commitment to study (he attended evening classes in English and Mathematics after work). But fate had other plans for the 19-year-old, and the company fell into receivership due to sloppy patent acquisition, leaving Royce out in the cold once again.

Royce was done, and it didn’t matter that his former employer’s parent firm was trying to save face by keeping as much as possible rather than selling off the rest of the company’s assets. His contemporaries noticed that he had an innate drive, a clear tolerance for (calculated) risk, and a lot of self-assurance, so he decided to go into business for himself.

Frederick Henry Royce (he was named Frederick Henry) established F H Royce & Co in Manchester in late 1884. After starting out making simple products like battery-operated door bells, the company eventually expanded into more complex machinery like overhead cranes and railway shunting capstans.

While the company was doing well, Royce was not. His health, already severely compromised from the deprivations of his upbringing, took a heavy hit from his years of overwork and a stressful home life by 1901.

Royce’s doctor talked him into buying a De Dion quadricycle so that he could get some exercise and fresh air away from the office, but the quadricycle ultimately proved to be his undoing. His rising worry over the company’s financial future was a crucial element; considering his father’s background, this may have hit especially close to home.

SIR HENRY ROYCE

The company’s decline was a result of competition from German and American manufacturers, who were able to undercut Royce’s prices with more affordable electrical machinery. Being a perfectionist who refuses to cut corners, Royce has no interest in competing on price.

He was convinced that a 10-week vacation to South Africa to see his wife’s family was necessary for him to recover fully. He spent the time reading “The Automobile: Its Construction and Management” on the flight back home. He, and the world, would be forever altered by the book he was about to read.

After recharging his batteries in France, Royce returned to England and bought his first car, a Decauville with 10 horsepower. Given the company’s still precarious financial situation, this may seem like a waste of money, but in reality, it was a calculated and astute acquisition that, in his eyes, held the key to the company’s future success.

The widespread perception is that Royce’s subsequent success was a result of his first car’s poor design and dependability. While on vacation, he discovered a book that inspired him to build his own automobile from scratch. He has since donated a small number of electric motors for the ‘Pritchett and Gold’ electric vehicle. Therefore, against conventional wisdom, he chose the Decauville because it was the best car he could get his hands on, so he could take it apart and, in his most famous words, “take the best that exists and make it better.”

Starting with the Decauville design, he constructed three 2-cylinder, 10-horsepower automobiles. Another indication of his perseverance and confidence is the fact that he was the only one who thought this new course of action would salvage the company. In addition, he established a standard for production that he adhered to until the day he passed away by meticulously reviewing components after each analysis and paying close attention to the smallest of details during the design process.

1929 ROLLS ROYACE

The next generation saw considerable advancements in vehicle design with the introduction of the three-cylinder 15 H.P., four-cylinder 20 H.P., and six-cylinder 30 H.P. Two years after Rolls-w considerable advancements in vehicle design with the introduction of the three-cylinder 15 H.P., four-cylinder 20 H.P., and six-cylinder 30 H.P. Two years after Rolls-Royce’s inception in 1904, managing director Claude Johnson successfully lobbied for a “one model” policy to be implemented at the company. The 40/50 H.P. ‘Silver Ghost’ was Royce’s reaction, and it was justly dubbed “the best car in the world” for good reason.

Long before scientific analysis could provide accurate data, Royce’s “near intuitive instinct” for utilising the proper materials for components was on full display in the Silver Ghost. Knowing that fluids’ characteristics change with velocity, he also engineered the Silver Ghost’s carburetor to include three jets that activated at different throttle settings to prevent ‘flat spots.

By 1906, it was clear that the Rolls-Royce factory in Manchester’s Cooke Street couldn’t keep up with the demand for the company’s motor cars. Royce planned and managed the construction of a new, state-of-the-art facility when Rolls-Royce purchased land on Nightingale Road in Derby. He took on this massive and technically complex endeavour in addition to his regular duties, and he expected everyone involved, including himself, to perform to his usual high standards.

Royce’s second significant health problem in 1911 was not unexpected, given the amount and pace of his labour. After another round of rest was prescribed, he went on a long road journey with Johnson that culminated in Egypt over the course of the summer and fall. They stopped in the south of France on the way back, where Royce fell in love with the sleepy little town of Le Canadel, not far from Nice. Johnson, ever the doer, purchased land and had a new home built for Royce, as well as a smaller villa for Royce’s visiting designers and assistants. Royce took a personal interest in the construction, staying at a motel in the area.

SIR HENRY ROYCE

Yet he was still in a precarious health condition. A relapse forced emergency surgery in England, and he eventually made his way back to the completed home to recover. He spent the rest of his life (sensibly) alternating between the south of England in the summers and Le Canadel in the winters.

Starting in 1917, he called Elmstead, an 18th-century house in West Wittering on the Sussex coast, his English home. Elmstead is only eight miles from the current House of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood. Royce revived his lifelong passion for fruit cultivation on the area adjacent to Elmstead. His drive for excellence naturally followed him into this endeavour, and he soon established himself as an authority on numerous agricultural and horticultural topics.

His existence at home in Elmstead provides further evidence of his perfectionist tendencies, which led him to scrutinise the minute details of other people’s activities. Like the unhappy worker at the Cooke Street Works who was once scolded and shown how to use a broom properly, a prospective cook would only be hired if they boiled potatoes the “right” way.

Royce never stopped striving for perfection in his work, whether it was creating car parts or aeroplane engines, but he eventually had to accept that such an ideal was unreachable. Some of his greatest technical feats resulted from his insistence that his drawing-office workers constantly “rub out, alter, improve, and refine.” He oversaw the transformation of the 825 H.P. Buzzard aero engine from 1927 into the 2,783 H.P. Schneider Trophy–winning ‘R’ engine, which was completed in just four years. Even after his death, three years later in 1936, his blueprint for a V12 engine would appear virtually unchanged in the Phantom III. He was the type of engineer who would assume that if it looked right, it probably was correct, trusting his gut instincts implicitly. His uncanny ability to evaluate parts by sight alone never failed to yield accurate results.

Overworking was a sign of Royce’s pursuit for excellence and a will to achieve it that was born through struggle and misery. He was a determined, almost obsessive, individual who triumphed over adversity by approaching every facet of his life with the same level of care and precision as an engineer and the same level of curiosity and diligence as a worker. His legacy and ideals are so potent that 160 years after his birth, they continue to shape the business that bears his name.