From the archives of Bob Montgomery, motoring historian
PIONEERS OF PETROL: In the early days of motoring, obtaining fuel supplies posed quite a problem for the would-be motorist.
First of all there was no firmly established type of fuel which all motorists used. Neither were there established places from where the fuel of their choice could be purchased.
Most motorists used benzole, a petroleum spirit which was purchased from chemists in relatively small quantities. Indeed, it has been surmised that this may have led to the early popularity of motor cars amongst doctors as they would have received a discount when buying benzole from the same chemists who supplied them with their stock of medicines.
Only as the car became more popular did hotels, first of all, begin to carry small supplies of fuel for touring motorists, and later, as the first garages were established, a growing network of fuel outlets came into being.
In 1890, a young 27-year-old engineer, Frederick Richard Simms, went to Britain with the intention of introducing motor launches on that country's waterways. Although British by descent, Simms had been born in Hamburg.
In Germany he had become a close friend and business associate of Gottlieb Daimler, one of the greatest pioneers of the motor industry.
It was Daimler's gas-oil engines which Simms imported from Germany and fitted to his motor launches. In England, Simms soon discovered, there were no motor spirits suitable for the surface carburettors fitted to the Daimler engines and as a result, Simms consulted an old-established business in the English oil distilling trade.
What was required was a spirit of high volatility - a deodorised petroleum spirit of light specific gravity. The company Simms approached was Carless, Capel and Leonard, who, it turned out, had already begun in May of that year to supply the Hon Evelyn Ellis with a suitable petroleum spirit.
In September 1890, Simms and Company began to take regular supplies of "Launch Spirit" from Carless, Capel and Leonard - five gallons at a time. The cost was 11 old pence a gallon.
In May 1893, Simms formed the Daimler Motor Syndicate Ltd and was soon ordering 100 gallons of Launch Spirit from the company monthly.
Tradition suggests that Simms proposed that the product be called Petrol rather than Launch Spirit.
At first this was resisted as it was felt that it was too close to Petroleum, the trade name for paraffin oil and was likely to be confused with it.
Eventually, Carless, Capel and Leonard gave way to the wishes of their best customer for this product and a pamphlet was produced describing the many uses of petrol.
Thus a new word was introduced to the language, and as competitors appeared in the market it was at first recognised that petrol was a trade mark of Carless, Capel and Leonard.
As a result, businesses such as the Anglo-American Company called their product Motor Spirit or other names.
However, attempts to register Petrol as a trademark with the Register of Trade Marks failed on the ground that it was a descriptive word, and as the law then stood, although a new word, it could not be registered.
The result, of course, was the almost universal use of the word petrol for the many variants of the fuels that have been used ever since to power the car.