Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin

Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin (8 November 186623 May 1941) was an English automobile designer and builder who founded the Austin Motor Company. For the majority of his career he was known as Sir Herbert Austin, and the Northfield bypass is called "Sir Herbert Austin Way" after him.

Background and early life

The son of a farmer, he was born in Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire in South East England, but the family moved to Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, Yorkshire in 1870 when his father was appointed farm bailiff. Herbert Austin first went to the village school, later continuing his education at Rotherham Grammar School. in North Melbourne, outside working hours. The Broad Street factory was not large enough, so Austin bought a bigger premises in Aston, Birmingham. He was chairman of their board from 1911 to 1933, when he retired shortly before his death.

In 1905, still under an unexpired five-year contract, Austin resigned from the Wolseley Tool & Motor Company, taking some of the senior staff with him. His brother Harry also joined him in this new venture, having worked with him at Wolseley in Birmingham.

During World War II, the company specialised in making aircraft; Horsa glider fuselages; In 1937, he received a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) from the University of Birmingham.

Lord Austin died from a heart attack and a bout of pneumonia. His only son Vernon had been killed in action in France in 1915 and the peerage became extinct upon his death. He and his wife also had two daughters, Irene (later to become Mrs. Waite) and Zeta (later to become Mrs. Lambert).

He was buried with his wife Helen, Lady Austin in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Lickey, near his former home at Lickey Grange and the factory at Longbridge, close to both Bromsgrove and Birmingham.

Arms