At the very dawn of motoring an Australian made a significant contribution to the development of the horseless carriage and motor racing. Selwyn Francis Edge was born in Concord, N.S.W. on the 29th of March 1868 and by the age of three had been taken to London by his parents where in his teens he competed successfully as a bicycle racer winning the 1888 100 Mile Road Race and a year later taking out the Westerham Hill Climb. In 1891, aged 23, and by then part of the English Team, he also came third in the first Bordeaux to Paris cycle race.

His career in cycling had brought him to the attention and employment by D. Rudge and Co. manufacturers of high-end bicycles which would in 1894 become Rudge Whitworth Cycles and later motorcycles. He then worked for Harvey du Cros, founder of the pneumatic tyre industry, as manager of the new Dunlop company in London where he met many early luminaries in the fledging motor industry.

By 1899 he had gone into partnership with pioneer motorist Charles Jarrott founding De Dion Bouton British and Colonial Ltd as importers of cars. He had also become friends with another keen cyclist, Montague Napier of D. Napier, and Sons. who had asked him to make some improvements to his early Panhard et Levassor. Later that year he would form the Motor Vehicle Company Ltd to sell Napier cars as well as Gladiators and Clement Panhard’s.

Ever the entrepreneur and recognising the value of publicity gained from motor racing Edge would enter an 8HP four-cylinder Napier (No. 8) in the Automobile Club’s 1900 Thousand Miles Trial on behalf of Edward Kennett with 14-year-old St. John Nixon as his mechanic. The Napier won its class and was one of only 35 finishers of the 64 starters, also one of twelve to average the required 12mph in England and 10mph in Scotland.

As Selwyn Edge wrote in his interesting book “My Motoring Reminiscences” the joys of motoring in the early days were few and far between due to the extreme ill-will the public bore towards the early motorists of the day. He recalled “Apart from deliberate attempts to wreck motor vehicles in the form of placing various obstacles in their path, such as occurred in the Paris-Bordeaux Race in 1901 when large boulders were placed in the road, I have been subjected to one open attack for no reason at all.”

He recalled, “In the winter of 1900 St. John Nixon, his sister and I went down to Brighton on “No 8”. It was a perishingly cold day, and the whole countryside was covered in a thick layer of show. All of us had so many clothes on that it was only with some difficulty that we could get in and out of the car. On the return journey, we stopped at the Albany Hotel in Crawley for a hot meal, and we did not leave again until well after dark. We lit the acetylene headlamps and were merrily bowling along the long straight stretch from Crawley to Povey Cross, which was by then a rather deserted piece of road, when I saw in the moonlight a small party of what I imagined to be country vokels standing on the corner of the road on the right almost immediately opposite Cheal’s Nurseries.”

“We were about to pass them, and one picked up a large piece of frozen ice and hurled it with all his might at me; it struck me on the head. Instantly I applied every brake the car possessed and took a flying leap out of the driver’s seat. I had no time to stop the engine which proceeded to race as it had never raced before, my one thought being to catch the culprit and teach him a lesson. The man took to his heels when he saw I was after him; my heavy clothes impeded me at first, so I discarded them, one by one, as I rushed along followed by Nixon picking them up. I could see he kept on taking a hurried glance over his shoulder to see whether I was gaining on him, and when he realised, I was doing so, he doubled back across a field and hid behind a haystack.”

“I spotted him, and there we stood in a field completely covered in snow, he doubtless wondering what was coming next and I determined to put into execution a form of punishment which had occurred to me during my pursuit. I grabbed him and told him that my first thought was to punch his head as it had never been punched before, but that on second thoughts, I considered that form of punishment far too lenient.”

“I told him to take of his overcoat which he did without question; then I demanded his jacket. I then made him give up his waistcoat and trousers, asked him his name, and taking my departure with his clothes tucked under my arm, left the man standing in the middle of the field in a semi-nude condition on one of the coldest nights I remember. I flung them into the car and off we went. Just before Povey Cross I saw another party of yokels standing at a corner, so pulling up I asked one of them whether they knew Bill Giles from Crawley. Yes, he knew him all right, so without a word of explanation, threw all of the clothes out and asked him to return them. I have often wondered what this party of yokels must have thought when a motor car, a very unusual thing to see in those days, pulled up without a word of explanation, and handed over their friend’s wardrobe.”

Possibly the first recorded case of road rage as we know it today.

Selwyn Francis Edge would become a regular competitor in the Paris to Bordeaux race and Gordon Bennett Cup with his Napier between 1901 and 1903, in the latter year creating a world first by also promoting Miss Dorothy Levitt, a secretary in his company, to drive a 12HP Gladiator in the Southport Speed Trials where she won her class. The first women to compete in a ‘motor race’ created enormous publicity but also sent shock waves through British Society.

Also in 1903, Edge would enter the inaugural British International Harmsworth Trophy for speed boats held on the River Lee in Ireland in a 40-foot steel hulled boat called Napier 1 achieving 31.1 km/hour. The boat was driven by Miss Dorothy Levitt under Edge’s watchful eye.

In June 1907 Edge also broke the 24-hour distance record, driving a 60HP six-cylinder Napier at the newly opened Brooklands Track covering the 2,544 km at an average speed of 106.06 km/hour, a record which stood for 18 years. In 1910 he was awarded the Dewar Trophy for his drive-in top gear in a 60HP Napier from London to Edinburgh and return.

He again returned to Brooklands driving a Spyker to set a new Double 12 world record, covering 2,868km at an average speed of 119.53 km/hour for the aggregate 24 hours.

After enormous success with Napier, he would sell his company S.F. Edge Ltd to Montague Napier in 1912 for 120,000 pounds. The sale included an agreement not to be involved in motor manufacturing for a period of seven years during which time he devoted himself to farming in Sussex, only to emerge as a shareholder in AC Cars in 1919 taking full control in 1922, later purchasing the company in 1927 for $135,000 pounds. However, AC Cars would collapse two years later at the start of the Depression, Edge selling his interest in the company and taking no further interest in the car industry.

He died on 12th February 1940 at his farm in Eastbourne, Sussex after making a huge contribution to the early development and promotion of the motor car and motor racing.