Simms, Frederick

SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

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b. 1863 Hamburg, Germany d. 1944

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English engineer and entrepreneur who imported the first internal combustion engines into Britain.

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Simms was born of English parents in Hamburg. He met Gottlieb Daimler at an exhibition in Bremen in 1890, where he had gone to exhibit an aerial cableway that he had designed to provide passenger transport over rivers and valleys; in the previous year, he had invented and patented an automatic railway ticket machine, the principle of which is still in use worldwide. He obtained a licence to develop the Daimler engine throughout the British Empire (excluding Canada). He had great trouble in arranging any demonstration of the Daimler engine as authorities were afraid of the risk of fire and explosion with petroleum spirit, particularly at indoor venues. He succeeded eventually in operating a boat with an internal combustion engine between Charing Cross and Westminster piers on the River Thames in 1891. He then rented space under a railway arch at Putney Bridge station for installing Daimler engines in boats. With Sir David Salomans he was responsible for organizing the first motor show in Britain in 1895; four cars were on show. Simms became a director of the main Daimler company, and was a consultant to the Coventry Daimler Company. He was the founder of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, a forerunner of the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), as well as the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

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Further Reading

E.Johnson, 1986, The Dawn of Motoring, London: Mercedes-Benz UK Ltd.

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