Failure of a Mission

Jones states in the official British history, The War in the Air, that the negotiations for the establishment of a Rolls-Royce factory in America which opened in the middle of 1916 came to nothing chiefly because the British firm was ‘unwilling to enter any arrangement which gave them no more than a money interest in the American Company’. Consequently in June 1917 the Air Board contemplated the possibility of ‘coercing’ Rolls-Royce to come to a reasonable agreement. The Air Board undoubtedly contemplated ‘coercion’ in June 1917, but there is no trace,1 on the firm’s side, of any negotiations concerning the possibility of manufacture in America until 15 May 1917, when Claude Johnson reported to the board ‘having offered to make Rolls-Royce engines for the American Government if it would provide the necessary funds’.2 Johnson estimated that £750,000 would be required to finance the production of 15–20 Falcons a week. The same board meeting also considered a proposal from Senor C. de Salamanca, the company’s Spanish representative, to manufacture aero-engines in Spain. This was turned down, but negotiations, which may have preceded and not followed this meeting, took place between Rolls-Royce and Morgan Grenfell.