ROLLS-ROYCE ‘MAKERS OF THE MARQUE’: ERIC PLATFORD – AutoMart Canada

ERIC PLATFORD: 25 FEBRUARY 1883 – 20 NOVEMBER 1938 

• A brief overview of the life and career of Eric Platford, born 25
  February 1883
• Played a fundamental role in testing and developing early
  Rolls-Royce models
• Racing success strengthened Rolls-Royce’s status as ‘the best car
  in the world’
• Aero-engine expertise made him a key figure in the first
  successful transatlantic flight
• Greatly respected by Royce, and the first holder of the official
  title of Chief Tester

 

“Having played a role which was central and fundamental to the
marque’s early successes, Eric Platford earned the right to be
recognised amongst his better known contemporaries, including Claude
Johnson and Ernest Hives. Indeed, through his painstaking testing
work and landmark successes in long-distance trials and Grand Prix
motor-racing, no one outside the company’s senior ranks did more to
secure its reputation as ‘the best car in the world’. Eric Platford
was also instrumental in achieving the first transatlantic flight,
powered by Rolls-Royce engines. These achievements, along with
countless others, cemented his position as a crucial figure in the
Rolls-Royce foundation story.”

Andrew Ball, Head of Corporate Relations and Heritage,
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Eric Platford was born in Manchester on 25 February
1883, one of four brothers. Although his father died just over a year
later, Eric enjoyed a full education, leaving school at 17 to take up
an apprenticeship with the General Electric Company. This proved to be
short-lived, and in 1900 he moved to a similar electrical products
firm nearby – Royce Limited. He would spend the rest of his working
life with his new employer.

In 1903, Henry Royce started building his first cars and
entrusted Platford with testing the engines. He also taught his
protégé to drive so he could road-test the chassis; a role he would
make his own, and in which he contributed enormously to the
development of many early Rolls-Royce models.

The skills that made him such an effective test driver also made
Platford a natural choice for the company’s racing exploits. His
competitive involvement began as a riding mechanic for Charles Rolls
in the 1905 Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race, which they would go on to
win in 1906.

In June that year, Platford prepared the 6-cylinder 30 H.P. car
that carried the company’s effervescent commercial managing director,
Claude Johnson, to victory in the Scottish Motor Trials. The following
May, Platford readied the ‘Silver Ghost’ for its dominant performances
in the 2,000 Mile Trial, and the Scottish Reliability Trial a month later.

Immediately after these triumphs, Claude Johnson – known to all
simply as ‘CJ’ – organised a publicity stunt of his own, in which he
and Platford drove the Silver Ghost on a record-breaking run of 15,000
miles non-stop. Platford’s status as Rolls-Royce’s preeminent car
preparer, tester and driver was now unassailable, and he was rewarded
in 1908 with an official promotion to the newly created role of Chief
Tester. For the next four years, he would also oversee the company’s
experimental department. In 1912, another of the company’s rising
stars, Ernest Hives, took over that role, so Platford could devote
himself fully to his true vocations, test-driving and racing.

It was a timely appointment. The 1912 Alpine Trial had seen a
rare – and to CJ’s mind, unconscionable – defeat for Rolls-Royce.
Platford was duly dispatched to Austria to assess the conditions and
recommend improvements to the motor car, to ensure there would be no
repeat of this humiliation. On his recommendation, the 1913 team,
consisting of four Silver Ghosts, was equipped with a new four-speed
gearbox and modified fuel and cooling systems. As well as driving one
of them, Platford oversaw the cars’ preparations throughout the event.
They went on to claim the top four places in Europe’s most gruelling
motoring challenge.

This success came just a week after Platford himself had driven
one of Rolls-Royce’s two entrants in the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix.
Entering the closing stages, Platford had built a commanding lead and
looked certain to win. However, in an early example of the ‘team
orders’ still seen in motor-racing, he was instructed to allow his
team-mate – and newly appointed Rolls-Royce agent for Spain – Don
Carlos de Salamanca, to pass him. Platford obeyed and Don Carlos took
the chequered flag in his home race; but another car slipped between
them as Platford slowed, dropping him to third place.

These exploits, together with his unstinting loyalty and
selflessness, earned Platford the respect of the entire company – and
a gold pocket watch from his grateful employers.

During the First World War, Platford took charge of testing
Rolls-Royce’s V12 Eagle aero engines. This experience would lead him
to perhaps his most enduring personal triumph. In 1919, four teams
were preparing to make the first flights across the Atlantic, all of
them using Royce’s engines. It would be the ultimate test of his
design, so Royce personally sent Platford to the starting point in St.
John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, to supervise the fitting of two
Eagle engines to the Vickers Vimy piloted by Captain John Alcock DSO
accompanied by navigator Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown.

At around 1:45pm on 14 June, Alcock and Brown took off and
headed east. After a journey fraught with difficulties, including
atrocious weather and the loss of their radio, intercom and heating,
they made landfall in County Galway, Ireland, at 8:40am the following
day. They were hailed as heroes, and Rolls-Royce engines were
thereafter also known as ‘the best in the world’.

On board the aircraft was a letter to Claude Johnson from
Platford about his work with the engines. It would be the first
transatlantic airmail letter ever delivered by the US Postal Service;
it is still kept, together with its franked envelope, in the Sir Henry
Royce Memorial Foundation archive. Platford would cross the Atlantic
himself numerous times in the years that followed, to oversee testing
procedures at the company’s manufacturing plant in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, Platford was in charge
of testing and quality control for both car and aero-engine production
at the main Rolls-Royce factory in Derby. As one of the company’s most
esteemed and trusted members, he often conducted visiting dignitaries,
including royalty from many nations, on tours of the premises.

The relationship between Royce and Platford extended beyond
trust into genuine friendship. Although strictly adhering to the
prevailing employer-employee protocols, Royce and Platford were
nonetheless close friends; indeed, one can see Royce, senior by 20
years, fulfilling the role of the father Platford never knew, and
Platford being the son Royce never had. Such was the bond that when
Platford married Minnie Hawkins in 1908, Royce gave them the use of
his own car for their honeymoon. In 1925, Royce presented Platford
with a signed photograph taken at Elmstead, Royce’s home in Sussex; an
extremely rare personal gesture of appreciation from an employer at
that time.

Eric Platford died suddenly on 20 November 1938, shortly after
concluding a meeting at the Air Ministry. He was just 55. His obituary
in the Rolls-Royce company magazine The Spanner paid tribute
to his innate good nature and fine technical skills, and the loyalty
and respect he earned from all who worked with him.

Through his driving skills, testing and development expertise
and era-defining racing accomplishments, Eric Platford contributed
more than anyone outside the ranks of senior management to
Rolls-Royce’s early success.