Nuffield, Viscount

Nuffield, Viscount (1877-1963), motor car maker, b. Worcester, England.

William Richard Morris, who became Lord Nuffield, started work in a bicycle shop in Oxford.

As a young man, he took up bicycle racing and he won many races on a machine he built himself. Then he opened his own bicycle shop at Cowley, near Oxford.

Later he built motorcycles and in 1912 he built his first motor car, the Morris Oxford.

After the First World War (1914-18), Morris began to make cars in large numbers using the same methods as Henry Ford in the United States.

By 1926, his company was making 100,000 cars a year. Lord Nuffield became a millionaire and he gave away large sums of money, amounting to £30 million at the time of his death.

He also set up the Nuffield Foundation which is today carrying out research to help doctors, scientists and teachers.

See Peter Hull Lord Nuffield: An Illustrated Life of William Richard Morris, Viscount Nuffield, 1877-1963 (Shire Library)