David Brown (entrepreneur)
Sir David Brown (
May 10,
1904 -
September 3,
1993) was an
English entrepreneur, managing director of his family firm
David Brown Limited and one time owner of shipbuilders
Vosper Thornycroft.
Born in
Huddersfield,
Yorkshire, he started work as an
apprentice in the family business, "David Brown Gear Company Ltd, aged 17, becoming managing director in
1931, on his uncle Percy's death. In 1934 the company built a new factory on a site at
Meltham, on the south side of Huddersfield and Brown, who also owned a farm, started making
Ferguson tractors there in 1939. During the Second World War a new heavier tractor called the David Brown was made with over 7700 being produced. This made him a wealthy man. In 1972 the David Brown tractor interests were sold to
Tenneco International (Inc.), and were rebadged as Case.
A natural adventurer who owned
race horses, played
polo, raced cars and
motorcycles, and was a qualified
pilot, in
1947, Brown saw a
classified advertisement in
The Times, offering for sale a
High Class Motor Business. Brown acquired
Aston Martin for £20,000 and, in the following year,
Lagonda for £52,500, followed by the coachbuilder
Tickford in 1955. He subsequently concentrated all the Aston Martin manufacturing at the Tickford premises in
Newport Pagnell.
The legendary "DB" series of Aston Martin cars, including the
DB5 driven by
James Bond and the
DB7 - Aston's most successful model ever - were named after David Brown. An irony while at the helm of Aston Martin is that he actually used a rival product, a Jaguar XJ Series I, as personal transport.
He was knighted in
1968.
He married three times, to Daisy Muriel Firth in 1926, Marjorie Deans (his secretary) in 1955 and to Paula Benton Stone in 1980. He had two children David and Angela both of whom entered the family business. Angela married
George Abecassis the racing driver. He died in
Monte Carlo 8 years before David Brown Ltd was acquired by
Textron Inc..
*
Facsimile of the advert from The Times*
The David Brown Company
