Austin, Herbert (1866-1941)

English industrialist who began manufacturing cars in 1905 in Northfield, Birmingham, notably the Austin Seven (1921). KBE 1917, Baron 1936.

Austin was born in Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire. He went to Australia in 1884 and worked in engineering shops there, returning to England in 1893. He joined the Wolsely Sheep-Shearing Company in Birmingham in 1893, and with them produced his first three-wheeled car in 1895. He opened his own works in 1905.