By the time Rolls and Royce met in 1904, the latter had escaped the gloomy lower class life in 
London to turn himself into a success. It was a hard struggle, because Royce’s father died when the boy was nine, and he was immediately thrust into the role as a breadwinner for the family. Trying to do his bit, he delivered telegrams and sold newspapers, but luck finally smiled his way when an aunt lined him up an apprenticeship at the Great Northern Railway.
While on this apprenticeship, he learned the basics of the machinist’s trade, and he also started to study electricity, a relatively new field of endeavor in 1879. Read more . . .
their careers as railway apprentices. Many years later, in the 1920s, the two men competed for the title of best English car maker- Bentley with his hell-for-leather quasi-racing machines and Royce with his elegantly refined Rolls-Royce models. When the Depression strike and Bentley’s business collapsed, Royce was right there to pick up the pieces, acquiring the rights to the