Industry Automotive & Aerospace
Fate Nationalised / split in 1973, and privatised in 1987 as Rolls-Royce plc
Successor Demerger
Rolls-Royce plc (1987)
Rolls-Royce Motors (1973)
Founded Manchester, England
(1906)
Founder(s) Charles Rolls and Henry Royce
Headquarters Derby, England, United Kingdom
Key people Henry Royce
Charles Rolls
Claude Johnson
Ernest Hives
The Spirit of Ecstasy, also called "Emily", "Silver Lady" or "Flying Lady", was designed by Charles Robinson Sykes and carries with it a story about a secret passion between John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, (second Lord Montagu of Beaulieu after 1905, a pioneer of the automobile movement, and editor of The Car Illustrated magazine from 1902) and his secret love and the model for the emblem, Eleanor Velasco Thornton. Eleanor was John Walter's secretary, and their love was to remain hidden, limited to their circle of friends, for more than a decade. The reason for the secrecy was Eleanor's impoverished social and economic status, which was an obstacle to their love. John-Walter, succumbing to family pressures, married Lady Cecil Victoria Constance, but the secret love affair continued.
Eleanor died on 30 December 1915, going down with the SS Persia, when the ship was torpedoed off Crete by a German submarine, whilst she accompanied Lord Montagu on his journey to India, four years after she had been immortalized by her bereaved lover.
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