Georges Roesch

Roesch, Georges Henry, born Geneva 15 April 1891: died 7 November 1969, automotive engineer, was the Swiss-born son of a German-born blacksmith turned Geneva garage operator and his French-born wife.

He came to England in 1914 from Delaunay-Belleville, where he trained under Barbaroux, to work for Daimler. With little English and a German surname and accent the subsequent outbreak of the First World War meant twelve months under a cloud of suspicion until the authorities gave him the benefit of the doubt. In 1916, aged 25, he was hired by the London firm of Clément-Talbot as Chief Engineer. He developed a 1750 cc touring car for production after the end of hostilities. However in 1919 Talbot was acquired by Darracq and Company London, and the following year the resulting combination brought in Sunbeam to form S T D Motors. Talbot began to make the Coatalen and S T D Motors Paris designed Talbot 8-18 which was not a success. Roesch modified the design and turned it into a successful four-seater named Talbot's 10-23. The Talbot factory proved too small for volume production. Between 1920 and 1925 Roesch worked with STD under Louis Coatalen to develop a six-cylinder push-rod engine of striking simplicity and efficiency.

Character Georges Roesch was not a boastful or articulate man. An insight into his irascible perfectionism may be gained from the report that he refused ever to have a vacuum cleaner in his house because he found none of the existing vacuum cleaner designs satisfactory.

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