Herbert Austin, Baron Austin

Herbert Austin, Baron Austin (born Nov. 8, 1866, Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire, Eng.—died May 23, 1941, near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire) was the founder and first chairman of the Austin Motor Company, whose Austin Seven model greatly influenced British and European light-car design. An engineer and engineering manager in Australia (1883–90), he became manager and later director of the Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Company in England. In 1895 he designed the first Wolseley car—a three wheeler—and in 1900 drove the first Wolseley four-wheeled car, also of his design. He began production of his own cars at the Longbridge Works, Birmingham, in 1906. Knighted in 1917, he was a Conservative member of the House of Commons from 1919 to 1924 and was created a baron in 1936.