Frederick York Wolseley (1837-1899) founded a company in Birmingham that built it’s first cars in 1896, three years before he died.  The works manager, Herbert Austin, was responsible for vehicle production at first, followed until 1909 by John Siddeley.  Wolseley became one of the largest car manufacturers in Great Britain, but by the 1920’s financial difficulties led to the company being acquired by William Morris.  A variety of different models was made for many years, but eventually Wolseleys became “badge-engineered” Morrises.  When Morris and Austin joined to form BMC, the Wolseley name was still used until BMC merged with Leyland, with the last cars badged as Wolseley being built in 1975.