About Us
100 Years and Still Motoring
Anyone entering Swain & Jones's showrooms in Farnham, Surrey, might be excused for thinking that it is a relatively recent initiative. But while the latest MG and Rover showroom did, in fact, only open in November 2000, the entire site is steeped in industrial and motoring history. In 1908, Frank Swain and John Lewis-Jones joined forces to establish a business as 'motor agents' at 38 East Street, Farnham. Twenty-five-year-old 'Jack' Lewis-Jones already had wide experience of the motor industry both in France - then Europe's leading motor manufacturing nation - and his home country. In the early years of the century he joined the prestigious Napier and Sons in Acton, West London, and eventually became one of its chief testers. There he met Frank Swain, who was almost exactly the same age; they were both born in June 1883, although Swain was older by three weeks.
But after four years with Napier, and seeking better wages, Lewis-Jones crossed the English Channel and joined Darracq at its factory at Suresnes outside Paris. He was a French speaker, having learnt the language during a spell in Switzerland, although he subsequently returned to Britain to become foreman at the Talbot factory in London's Ladbroke Grove. There he again met up with Frank Swain, who had spent much of the intervening years in Italy at the Genoa works where the San Giorgio, a localised version of the Napier, was being produced. They decided to establish Swain & Jones on the south side of Farnham's East Street, which was the main road that led out of the town towards the Hog's Back to Guildford and then on towards London. Farnham had already made motoring history because, at the other end of the town, in West Street, a wealthy local inventor named John Henry Knight had, in 1895, produced one of Britain's earliest motor cars. That year he had been charged for driving his three-wheeler without a licence and fined 2s 6d (12.5p). The premises that Swain & Jones occupied in those days had previously been used by a coachbuilder named William Keen, who set up in business in 1826. His wooden shop, with its high close-boarded and tile-hung roof, remained part of the company's showroom complex until 1976. Keen had previously worked for a nearby wheelwright named George Sturt, who had been established in Farnham since 1810. At the time of Swain & Jones' arrival in 1908, his grandson, also George, was still in business on the opposite side of East Street, from where he traded as Sturt and Goatcher, and was also building bodies for 'horseless carriages'. The firm's original activity was destined to be immortalised in George Sturt's famous book, The Wheelwright's Shop, published in 1923, in which he sensitively described what, even then, was a dying craft.
If Sturt's business was in its twilight years, that of Messrs Swain & Jones was in the ascendancy. They were soon to outgrow their original premises and, in 1912/13, four adjoining cottages were demolished to make way for new workshops. But the First World War broke out on 4th August 1914, and just eight days later Frank Swain and the wheelwright shop's Harry Goatcher joined up, with Swain recruited into the Royal Flying Corps. Lewis-Jones continued to run the Farnham business, which was soon producing aero engine components for the war effort. After hostilities, and following a brief spell in the newly-formed RAF, Swain returned to East Street in 1919, and remained with the business until his retirement in 1937. This left Lewis-Jones as sole proprietor and he was joined by his son, Donald.
In 1919, the first full year of peace, Swain & Jones had been appointed an Austin agent, and was later to become a main dealer, so forging an association with the company's Longbridge works that endures to this day. It proved to be a fruitful alliance for, by the end of the l920s, Austin - thanks mostly to the success of its famous Seven - was only outsold by Morris, the market leader. But burgeoning sales and repair work at East Street meant that space was once again a problem and, in 1927, the company acquired property on the north side of the road, where a new paintshop, workshops and filling station were established. Next door, to the west, George Sturt had, in 1920, sold the wheelwright's business to his manager, William Arnold. He and his business partner Comben, from 1923, not only sold cars from there but also continued with the coachbuilding business where they built bodies for, among others, the Aldershot and District bus company. Further down East Street, from 1931, a blunt no-nonsense Yorkshire-man named Leslie Hawthorn opened a motor business that was to emerge as The Tourist Trophy Garage. And, in 1958, his son Mike, the so-called Farnham Flyer, would become Britain's first world motor-racing champion. After the Second World War, changes began to affect the motor industry, and one-time rivals Austin and Morris merged in 1952 to form the British Motor Corporation. As Swain & Jones' business boomed, in 1955 the company acquired more land to build new large workshops behind its showrooms and, as an Austin Main Parts Stockist, these also included a large spares store. The company's involvement with MG dates from 1957, the year before the business celebrated its 50th anniversary, and the make arrived with BMC's Morris, Wolseley and Riley agencies. A new showroom, able to accommodate 36 cars, was opened that year when the MGA was Abingdon's current sports car. But changes were taking place within the motor industry, with BMC giving way in 1968 to British Leyland, and with it the turmoil that it carried in its wake. More positively, in 1969, the company took over the Tourist Trophy Garage's Rover and Triumph franchise and subsequently became Jaguar/Daimler main distributors. There was also a corporate upheaval at East Street in 1976 when the showrooms, which, in part, still incorporated William Keen's original coachbuilding shop, were destroyed by fire. But the demise of this range of structures, that had grown piecemeal over the years, did allow Swain & Jones to initiate the construction of a new purpose-designed showroom, which was opened the following year. Subsequently, the company redeveloped the north side of East Street and this involved acquiring George Sturt's one-time wheelwright's shop, constructed in about 1795 of local ironstone. This had been sold by Arnold and Comben in the late 1930s to brothers Len and Joe Heath, who used it for motorcycle sales for some 40 years, and John West had continued this two-wheeled tradition. It was now a listed building and, in redeveloping the site, the old workshop has been imaginatively rebuilt to incorporate a display in tribute to Sturt. The adjacent Jaguar showrooms were opened in 1989 by its chairman, Sir John Egan. Reproduced by kind permission of MG World magazine.
Swain & Jones' managing director, Peter Lewis-Jones, is the grandson of the founder joining the business in 1968. "Ninety-six years in any business is a long time, but in the motor industry it takes us back to the very early pioneering days of motoring. During this period of time, we have experienced enormous change - both in the world in which we live and in the developments made to the motor car. I would like to think that if our founders could see the business today, they would feel their vision for its future had been fulfilled. Now, as we approach our centenary, I would like to thank everyone that has contributed towards our continued success for their time and efforts." 
Peter Lewis-Jones |
