Selwyn Edge - Business Career

Business Career

In 1899, he went into partnership with pioneering motorist Charles Jarrott and Herbert Duncan to found De Dion-Bouton British and Colonial Ltd as importers of cars. He had become friends with Montague Napier (of Napier & Son), another keen cyclist, and in 1898 asked Napier to carry out some improvements to his Panhard. In 1899, along with Harvey du Cros, Edge formed the Motor Vehicle Company Ltd to sell these improved cars, made by Napiers (Edge paid ₤400, selling at ₤500), as well as Gladiators and Clément-Panhards, both manufactured in Paris by Adolphe Clément-Bayard.

In 1907 The Sydney Morning Herald reported: "S. F. Edge (1907), Ltd., has been registered at Somerset House, London, with a capital of £275,000, to carry on the business of motor car, cycle, launch, and flying machine manufacturers." He sold his company, S.F. Edge Ltd, to Napier in 1912, for ₤120,000. The sale included an agreement not to be involved in motor manufacturing for seven years. During this period he devoted himself to farming at Ditchling, Sussex.

In 1917 he was appointed controller of the agricultural machinery department of the Ministry of Munitions.

When the embargo on motor manufacturing expired in 1919 he started to build up a shareholding in AC Cars, gaining full control in 1922. About 1923 Edge was also Managing Director of William Cubitt & Company, who had entered the car market with the Cubitt marque, but were out of business by 1925. Edge switched the contract for purchasing engines for the AC car from Anzani, where he also sat on the board, to Cubitt, who produced what was essentially a copy of the Anzani design. Edge purchased AC cars outright for ₤135,000 in 1927. When AC collapsed in 1929, Edge sold his interest in the company and took no further business interest in the motor industry.