John and Raymond Dennis made Speed King bicycles in Guildford before building their first motor vehicle, a de Dion tricycle, in 1898. Their first car proper, a 1899 doctor’s car, was never sold, but by 1901 they had built what was described as the first purpose-built motor vehicle factory in Britain, the Rodboro Buildings in Onslow Street, and Dennis Brothers Ltd was incorporated. Its cars included a 20 hp Roi de Belges that won the 1907 Dewar Trophy for a 4,000-mile trial.
Commercial vehicles took over: the first Dennis bus in 1903 and the first fire engine in 1908. In 1913 Dennis moved to a large new works at Woodbridge Hill, Guildford, and after the First World War, when car production did not restart, it bought the engine maker White & Poppe. Dennis vehicles were made to order to customers’ requirements and were more strongly built than mass-production equivalents. During the Second World War it built Churchill tanks, fire pumps and thousands of engines.
The original shareholders sold out in 1972 after a decade of financial trouble, and ownership then changed many times. No Dennis haulage trucks have been made since 1985 and the last Dennis fire engine left Guildford in 2007. Its bus-building descendant Alexander Dennis closed the Guildford factory in 2020, but the Dennis name survives on buses, Dennis Eagle dustcarts and lawn mowers.
