There are few people whose name is synonymous with a product. Alexander Eric Moulton is such a person. Any cycling enthusiast would immediately recognise the Moulton cycle as a unique marque, renowned for its performance and quality.
Alex Mouton's career has spanned major British industries of Aerospace and Motor cars as well as managing a small successful enterprise. He is the great-grandson of the rubber pioneer Stephen Moulton, the founder of the family business George Spencer Moulton & Co Ltd. His education at the University of Cambridge was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Whilst awaiting call up to the RAF he joined the Bristol Engine Company working closely with Sir Roy Fedden, and it is this connection with what is today the Rolls-Royce site at Bristol which lead Alec to work with The Trust (of which he is a life member) in producing his autobiography. Post war he joined the family company and worked closely with Alec Issigonis developing the Hydrolastic Suspension system for a number of motorcars particularly the Austin Mini. In the mid 1950s he questioned the design of the classic bicycle and designed and produced the bicycle which carries his name.
His approach to problems and opportunities is an example to all aspiring and practicing engineers. He is extremely creative, enthusiastic and constantly questions accepted norms. He works from first principles striving to understand the fundamentals of any problem and his creativity is supported by the liberal use of freehand sketching. He is never satisfied that his designs cannot be improved and continues to refine and improve his products, and bring them successfully to market.
Geoff E Kirk
RDI FREng.
The Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust wishes to thank Jonathan Rishton for the production of the initial manuscript.
Geoff Kirk was Chief Design Engineer at Rolls-Royce and is currently a consultant to the Company, and a visiting Professor at the University of Nottingham.
Appropriate to my age, I have been urged to write my memoirs. I showed a few early pages of the draft to some literary friends. They told me it was not how memoirs are written; they are usually about events in one's life, where one has travelled, whom one has met and so on. Although I have included some of these, my enduring preoccupation is with the creative process of engineering innovation. I realise that this arcane subject usually only interests a limited range of readers, but I believe that cars and bicycles as artefacts, the creation of which I describe, are of great interest to a large number of people.
The book is intended to be didactic as well as descriptive. My friend, the author the late James Lees Milne complained in his 'Diaries' that I "pontificated too much". I have no hesitation in doing this here when to do so is based on my experience of what I believe to be admirable.
In contrast to other memoirs, I am using a large number of diagrams and sketches. Sketches have the mnemonic power to help the recall for the written explanations, which I hope will be comprehensible to those who do not possess much technical aptitude. The sketches and notes are facsimiles from my archive, presented chronologically to show the origins of the concepts and the consequent steps In the process of creating an engineering artefact.
I describe each subject group with which I have been concerned during my life - aero engines, automotive suspension, bicycles, steam power, but at the core, the estate here at Bradford-on-Avon, comprising gardens, stable buildings, workshops, the river leading up to Bradford Wood and The Hall itself, which has cast its spell of magic on me for all my life. It continues to be true that the objective of conserving it as a living and working entity for contemporary and future use dominates all the decisions in my life.
In each section I refer to the remarkable personalities with whom I have had the good fortune to work. Most have remained friends for our lives. Many are included in a splendid mural, which I commissioned Graham Rust to paint for the dining room in the early 1970s.
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