Page:Motors and motor-driving (1902).djvu/47

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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MOTOR-CAR
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supported some of the pioneer companies from his private purse to the tune of probably 20,000l. Sir David Salomons, although not financially interested in the industry, worked with great zeal and energy with a view to making the running of motor vehicles on the road permissible, and spent very many hours in advising the Government officials as to what the law should be. Mr. Shaw Lefevre, as President of the Local Government Board, was about to introduce a Bill when in 1895 the Government went out, with the result that the honour of bringing before Parliament the Light Locomotives Act fell to

The first car built by the Daimler Company at Coventry


his successor, Mr. Henry Chaplin. Mr. Henry Sturmey, who had long been associated with the cycle press, was quick to recognise that the motor-car movement was to attain prodigious proportions, and on November 2, 1895, he produced the first number of a newspaper called 'The Autocar.' This he wrote and edited personally himself, unaided, for over a year, and continued the editorship of the paper until 1901. The 'Automotor and Horseless Vehicle Journal,' 'The Motor-Car Journal,' and other journals followed, but the honour of