Obituary
Page 30
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
LORD ROOTES
WE regret to record the death on VII December 12, at the age of 70, of William Edward Rootes, first Baron Rootes of Ramsbury, who was chairman of Rootes Motors and Rootes Ltd. and a director of all the group companies, including Commer Cars Ltd. and Karrier Motors Ltd. He was the leader of a Group which he had helped to grow from a motor trade concern in Kent to a worldwide vehicle manufacturing organization.
William Rootes was born in 1894 in Goudhurst, Kent, and started his career as an apprentice with Singer Motors Ltd. (a company he later bought), earning occasional extra money by motorcycle racing in his spare time. He left Singer to join his father's motor and cycle distribution business in Kent and, after war service with the R.N.V.R., began to buy an interest in the Humber and Hillman companies--Rootes by then having been built into the biggest vehicle distribution concern in the country.
With his younger brother, Sir Reginald, he formed the Rootes Group in the early 'thirties, having gained control of Hillman, Humber and Commer and later adding Sunbeam, Talbot and Karrier.
Rootes were the first company to enter the pre-war shadow factory scheme for volume production of aircraft and aeroengines and William Rootes subsequently A28 .became chairman of the Shadow Aircraft Industry Plan. It wai for this and like services that he was knighted in 1942.
Lord Rootes was noted especially for his interest in education and in overseas trade, but many Of those who were familiar with his tremendous efforts as chairman of the Western Hemisphere Exports Council in recent years may be surprised to learn that he was a member of the Overseas Trade Advisory Council and similar bodies as far back as 1933. He combined a personal taste for travel with an enormous enthusiasm for selling. He was chairman of the Dollar Exports Council at the time when he was created a Baron in the 1959 New Year Honours; his son, the Hon. William Geoffrey Rootes, now succeeds to the title.