Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury

1884

Alton Towers c. 1880

A devotee of coach driving for several seasons he ran the daily Greyhound (i.e. fast) coach service the 20 miles from fashionable Buxton Spa to his house, Alton Towers, now the site of a theme park.[5]

Caricature of Talbot in 1903

For many years he was in business as a hansom cab owner, his vehicles marked "S.T" (for Shrewsbury and Talbot) and the horses "being of the best possible quality",[1] and he was the first owner to have cabs that were fitted with noiseless tyres operating in London and Paris.[5]

A hansom cab, London, 1904. Then aged only 23 he began in Westminster, London in the summer of 1884 with 35 Forder Royal Hansom cabs made by Forder of Wolverhampton, who held royal warrants for their carriages and made luxury hansoms for private use. Talbot's were built to Forder's special patented design and they were of Forder's special lightweight construction. Each was fitted with rubber tyres[note 1] for passenger comfort which also had a side effect of lengthening the carriage's life. All his horses were hog-maned[note 2] and on the side of each cab was a coronet and the initials S and T at either side of it. The telephone was laid on to the stables so a cab might be called at a moment's notice.[6]

To begin with drivers paid £1 a day for the use of the horse and cab keeping the remainder of their takings. In slack periods the drivers would strike asking Talbot for a price reduction. In the summer of 1888 he floated a public listed company, The Shrewsbury and Talbot Cab and Noiseless Tyre Company Limited, to buy two businesses. Firstly the business of cab proprietor and job master worked by the earl himself and secondly the business of The Noiseless Tyre Company Limited, manufacturers of steel and rubber tyres in Manchester and London.[7]

In the Spring of 1891 following almost annual strikes by his cab drivers Talbot put his company's 300 horses up for sale, under police protection, in the company's Battersea premises. At that time they operated from a number of yards in different parts of London. The press reported the terms offered to drivers in detail then the prices of the horses and advised that every animal put up for sale had been sold.[8] Strong competition from other rubber tyred cabs seems to have become a serious problem. The business was restarted in October 1891 with cabmen friendly to the company.[9]

In November 1900 Talbot formed another public listed company, Shrewsbury S T and Challiner Tyre Company Limited, to manufacture and deal in cabs, carriages, motor cars, cycles, vehicles, tyres, tubes, wire, India rubber and gutta percha goods etc.[10] In December 1903 he was described in a court action brought by Dunlop over the importation of Michelin tyres as "proprietor of the business known as Maison Talbot in London's Long Acre managed by Mr Weigel."[11][note 3]

In March 1901 he formed British Automobile Commercial Syndicate Limited "with objects sufficiently indicated by the title". The shareholders were not people of note but provided addresses in the then almost semi-rural Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, Shepherds Bush areas and Hatton Gardens EC. One of the shareholders was a Mr R Weigel of 25 Maxilla Gardens North Kensington, Talbot was the first chairman.[12] The other first directors were M. Chabert, president of the Société Commerciale d'Automobiles, Paris and Mr D M Weigel, managing director. The new premises (formerly occupied by carriage builders) at 97-98 Long Acre (adjoining 1 Endell Street) covered "four large floors".[13] Twelve months later Talbot was made chairman of Messrs J Rothschild and Son Limited incorporated to carry on the business of making motor car bodies by expanding the London activities of the well known French businesses of Clément-Rothschild and Messrs J Rothschild and Son. The second floor of the same building was to be Maison Talbot suppliers of Talbot tyres (as fitted by the Hon C S Rolls), the third floor to be automobile clothing.[14] In March 1909 he made a formal announcement that he would close the business which could be seen to be competing with his Talbot agents.[15]

In 1909 he floated Homoil Trust Limited leading a board of the late engineer-in-chief of the Navy, another colliery owner and a well-known consulting engineer. The company was formed to purchase and develop various patents for the production of a cheaper home-produced and more efficient substitute for petrol made from coal-tar.[16] It was voluntarily wound-up at the end of 1910.[17]