The Noble Mechanic

Though he climbed from ordinary mechanic to wealthy viscount, William Richard Morris never forgot his first skill. He built Morris Motors into Britain's biggest automaker, but until three years ago drove a 1939 Wolseley Eight with 215,000 miles on its speedometer --and replaced the parts himself when the Wolseley staggered. The human engine is less easy to repair. Last week at 85, weakened by four operations and a heart condition, William Richard Morris, the Viscount Nuffield, died.

Working for Billy. Along Fleet Street, he inevitably was dubbed Britain's Henry Ford--and the careers of the two in many ways ran parallel. Son of an accountant who fell on hard times, William Morris* was forced to leave school at 16, became a 70-c--a-week bicycle mechanic. When he was turned down for a raise, he quit and went to work "for Billy Morris," started making both bicycles and motorcycles. Gradually, automobile owners began driving up for repairs--and Morris decided that autos were his future. In 1910, with $20,000 in savings, he set up a factory on the outskirts of Oxford and put together his first model. By 1913 he was making 400 cars a year.

Like Ford, whose Lizzies were his earliest competition, Morris set out to build a simple, reliable and economical automobile that could be produced in volume and priced for the common man. "I look forward to a time," he once said, "when it becomes a recognized thing for a British workingman to have his own car." When Britain's auto business slumped in 1921, he gambled on cost savings from his new assembly lines and cut prices to a point where his loss per car was $240. But sales zoomed from 1,500 a year to 65,000, and the losses were wiped out. Nuffieid (he got his viscountcy in 1938) later broadened his line with the sleeker Riley and sporty MG, eventually reached a yearly capacity of 150,000. Finally, in 1952, Morris and rival Austin merged to form British Motors Corp., now the world's eighth largest auto company. Less than a year later, still peppery at 75, the Viscount Nuffield retired.

Back to 1278. In retirement he enjoyed a second spectacular career, becoming, by a wide margin, Britain's most generous philanthropist. Childless and reportedly thwarted of ambitions toward a career in medicine, Nuffield lavished some $75 million on charities, mostly in medical grants. Oxford University, whose hallowed walls are close by Morris' Cowley plant, got $17.7 million for Nuffield College, which specializes in social studies, and Nuffield medical center. In return, it bestowed on him an honorary master of arts.

Giving money turned out to be less rewarding than making it. People talked about the guilt complex that drove Nuffield; the Establishment, for which he had no use anyhow, scorned him as a parvenu. Angrily, he hired a genealogist, who traced his family to Oxfordshire gentry of 1278, a date few noble lords hark back to. Then W.R.M., as friends called him, retired deeper into the shade and kept six secretaries busy sorting the 2,000 requests for funds he received weekly. Toward the end, Nuffield began to complain that "they like me for my money instead of myself," sometimes told his friends that "the bin is beginning to run a bit empty." But all indications last week were that it is still nicely full. The Nuffield Foundation, which handled Billy Morris' major donations, alone holds Morris stock worth $100 million.

* Who took his title from the Thameside village where he lived after he made it rich.

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