The first recorded journey of a motor car in England was made 126 years ago this month by a Datchet resident, the Honourable Evelyn Ellis, in his 1895 Panhard-Levassor. Ellis lived at Rosenau on Southlea Road. During time in France and Germany, he became interested in the motor industry and wanted to see it established in England. One great obstacle here was the Red Flag Act which restricted steam-powered vehicles from driving more than 4mph on public roads, and he planned to defy this Act in the hope that it would be repealed. In June 1895, Ellis purchased his motor car, powered by a Daimler engine, for £200 from the Paris firm of Panhard-Levassor. He took it across the Channel and then on to Micheldever Station in Hampshire.