Lickey Grange - Herbert Austin

Herbert Austin

The early history of Lickey Grange is not known. Herbert Austin founded the Austin Motor Company, at Longbridge, in 1905 and he moved his family to Lickey Grange in 1910. His new home included 100 acres (40 ha) of surrounding land; and a lodge.

He had previously worked as an Engineer at the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Company in Australia and returned to England, with his Australian wife, in 1893 to become Manager of its manufacturing operations in Aston, Birmingham. He extended the range of the company; but continued as Manager of both parts of the company. The new part became known in 1901 as the Wolseley Tool and Motor Company; and he had designed its first car. He left the Wolseley Tool and Motor company in 1905, bringing two former Wolseley designers with him to his new company at Longbridge, which was then in the countryside, in Worcestershire. However, he continued working for the Wolseley Sheep and Shearing Company; and was Chairman from 1911 to 1931.

Between 1893 and 1910 Herbert Austin had lived in various parts of Birmingham. By 1910 he was sufficiently wealthy to move from Birmingham, with his wife, two daughters and his son, to his new home, Lickey Grange, where he spent the rest of his life.

The Austin 7 was designed at Lickey Grange between 1921 and 1922 in the billiards room (but not on the billiards table!). This was a 7 horsepower (hp) car. It had been designed in private, at Sir Herbert Austin's expense, at Lickey Grange because the other directors of the Austin Motor company preferred bigger 12 hp-engined cars and were against the idea of a "small" car. Herbert Austin patented some of the features and so gained a royalty for every Austin 7 sold by the company. Stanley Edge, the young design draughtsman who worked for Sir Herbert, lived at the Lodge but ate his meals in the adjoining library.

Herbert Austin died in 1941 and was buried in the graveyard of Lickey Church. The Grange was later sold.