Stefan Tyszkiewicz

Lentvaris Manor, Lithuania

Stefan was the first born son, and second child of four, of Count Władysław Tyszkiewicz and his wife, Princess Krystyna Maria Lubomirska. The family were not merely members of the nobility, but had been magnates, and Stefan was to be the final heir to the Lentvaris Manor in Lithuania. His older sister, Zofia Róża, was famed as a great beauty and married Count Klemens Potocki.[1] Already in childhood, Stefan showed a remarkable aptitude for technology. At the age of 14 years, he managed to gain a professional driving permit in Milan. In 1911, at only 17, he took out patents for two heating systems, one for cars, the other for flying machines. In 1913 he began undergraduate studies in engineering at Oxford University.

Advert for the Stetysz car from 1928.

In 1924 he began working on a project to design a car with the idea of developing motorised road transport in Poland. He founded a partnership for the purpose in Boulogne-Billancourt, a Paris suburb. He named it Automobiles Ralf Stetysz (a contraction of his name with the acronym in Polish of: Rolniczo Automobilowo-Lotnicza Fabryka Stefana Tyszkiewicza, translating as: the 'Agricultural-Aero-Automotive Factory of Stefan Tyszkiewicz'). His prototype vehicle used an American engine of the Continental Motors Company. The aim was to construct an all terrain passenger carrier adapted to a very poor road infra-structure and easy to maintain and repair. In 1925 he succeeded in producing two models:

• The model TC with a 6-cylinder engine of 2760 cm³ capacity and 42 horsepower
• The model TA with a 4-cylinder engine of 1500 cm³ capacity and 20 horsepower.[4]

The car was exhibited at both the 1926 and 1927 international Paris Car Show, where it gained the reputation of a good quality 'Colonial' car.[5] It also met with success at Polish sporting and trial events and it participated in the 1929 Eighth Monte Carlo Rally when it won recognition and a prize for comfort and its adaptability for long-distance travel. In 1928 production was transferred to Warsaw, to an existing factory, 'K. Rudzki & S-ka'. The car-bodies were manufactured by the aero specialist, Plage & Laskiewicz of Lublin. In moving the operation to Poland, Tyszkiewicz had to place his entire family fortune as collateral. In support, his wife parted with her own family heirloom, an 86 carat emerald brooch, which had once belonged to Catherine the Great.

On 11 February 1929, the Warsaw factory was destroyed by fire. Six completed cars were lost and 27 nearing completion. One or two were saved. Tyszkiewicz intended to restart production at his estate in Lentvaris, but failed to convince the shareholders of the 'Stetysz' company. In all, 200 Ralf Stetysz vehicles had been produced. So after the fire, Tyszkiewicz resigned himself to importing Mercedes-Benz and Fiat cars into Poland. He co-founded the 'Road League' – 'Liga Drogowa', and became its president in 1933. He also wrote about Motorisation in Poland.

The outbreak of war in 1939 found him and his family on the territory of the Lithuanian republic, where he was involved in converting petrol engines into gas-powered ones, owing to the petrol shortage. Thanks to his contacts with the Italian legation in Lithuania, he helped Poles escape the conflict. After the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union in June 1940, Tyszkiewicz was arrested and taken to Moscow where he was invited to collaborate with the NKVD, an offer he rejected requesting instead a laissez-passer to Italy. He was released from Lubianka Prison in October 1941 and made his way to the General Anders' army being formed then in preparation for a mass exodus from the USSR. He was appointed officer-in-charge of the motorised unit of the Polish 2nd Corps. Having traversed into Iran, thence to Palestine and Egypt, as a Rotmistrz – captain – in the 1st Krechowce Uhlan Regiment and as Communications Officer, (or personal adjutant) to gen. Anders, in 1944 he was especially useful connecting with Italian units fighting on the Allied side. During the Italian campaign he was director of the Red Cross in Anders' Army.[6] During the buildup to the Battle of Monte Cassino, he invented a mechanism for discovering and destroying non-magnetic anti-personnel mines. His regiment was awarded the Virtuti Militari Order.

Having reached the UK with Anders' army after the cessation of hostilities, Tyszkiewicz settled in London. In 1949, with Stanisław Mackiewicz he published a weekly entitled, Lwów i Wilno – 'Lviv and Vilnius', a campaigning publication following the Soviet annexation of these two ethnically diverse cities in the Second Polish Republic and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of their residents, some of whom had found refuge in Britain.[7] His war time alliances drew him to the Poles settled in the UK, but his wife preferred to live in Rome where he visited often. Meanwhile, his daughter chose to live in Geneva and Broż reports that when they met, they conversed in Russian. The family had a villa in Antibes.[8]

In the 1950s Tyszkiewicz did a stint in Turin working for Fiat, after which he concentrated on electronics. He took out a number of new patents, for example, 'stenovox', an early recording device, later improved as the 'Stetyphone'.[9] Both inventions earned him the Grand Prix at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. He also worked on Power assisted steering. He went on to design a wheel-chair, which thanks to an automatically variable axle length, could go up and down stairs, including escalators. Another patented invention was a luggage trolley very like the ones that are ubiquitous in contemporary airports. For these devices he was awarded gold medals at the inventors' fairs in Geneva in 1972 and New York in 1973. He designed an industrial stapler that was noted in Brussels in 1965 and in Geneva in 1972. His improvements to fuel efficiency in combustion engines, the 'Stetair', was rewarded at the Geneva Motor Show in 1974.

Tyszkiewicz had a long-standing interest in aeronautics and collaborated with the former European Launcher Development Organisation, on load-bearing rockets, and was later connected to the European Space Research Organisation and European Space Agency projects.

He belonged to the Polish National Council. which advised the Polish Government in exile. He was a Knight of Malta and was elected on three occasions to its Grand Council.[10] Stefan Tyszkiewicz died in London in 1976 and was buried in the family plot at London's Brompton Cemetery.

• Karol Anders
• Sovereign Military Order of Malta

[1] http://www.tygodnik.lt/200951/bliska5.htm%5B%5D Narkowicz Liliana 'Uchodźca i bezpaństwowiec', access 2012-04-14, review: Tygodnik Wileńszczyzny vol. 51 (483) December, 2009

• Kaczorowski B., ed. (2008). "Stefan Tyszkiewicz". Wielkie biografie. 3, Odkrywcy, wynalazcy, uczeni. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. pp. 620–621. ISBN 9788301151089.
• Narkowicz Liliana (2013). Tyszkiewiczowie rodem z Landwarowa. Warsaw: Neriton. ISBN 978-83-7543-304-3.

• Russian Imperial Corps of Pages. An Online Exhibition Catalog // Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) of Columbia University
• Patent by Stefano Tyszkiewicz from 1955 for sound recoding machines. Google Patents.
• Patent by Stefan Tyszkiewicz from 1972 for an industrial paper stapler. Google Patents.
• Patent by S. E. Tyszkiewicz from 1974 for a luggage trolley. Google Patents.
• Zdjęcia samochodów Ralf-Stetysz Photographs of Stetysz cars.