Selwyn Edge

Selwyn Francis Edge (1868–1940) was an Australian-born British businessman, racing driver, and record-breaker. He is principally associated with selling and racing De Dion-Bouton, Gladiator; Clemént-Panhard, Napier and AC cars.

Edge was born in Concord township, near Sydney, on 29 March 1868; his parents were Alexander Ernest Edge and Annie Charlotte Sharp. At age three, he was taken to London where in his teens he competed successfully as a bicycle racer, winning the Westerham Hill climb when he was nineteen. One of the English Team and aged 23 he came 3rd in the first Bordeaux–Paris cycle race in 1891. He worked for Rudge then Harvey Du Cros as manager of his new Dunlop offices in London. In 1892 he married Eleanor Rose Sharp who died sometime before 1917; his second wife, Myra Caroline Martin, whom he married in 1917, had two daughters by him.

From 1910 until at least 1922 he resided at Gallops Homestead, Ditchling, Sussex, and from 1912–19, courtesy of his contract with Napiers, he devoted himself to farming.

He died 12 February 1940 in Eastbourne, Sussex, England.

In 1899, he went into partnership with pioneering motorist Charles Jarrott and Herbert Duncan to found De Dion-Bouton British and Colonial Ltd as importers of cars. He had become friends with Montague Napier (of Napier & Son), another keen cyclist, and in 1898 asked Napier to carry out some improvements to his Panhard. In 1899, along with Harvey du Cros, Edge formed the Motor Vehicle Company Ltd to sell these improved cars, made by Napiers (Edge paid ₤400, selling at £500), as well as Gladiators and Clément-Panhards, both manufactured in Paris by Adolphe Clément-Bayard.

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