Talbot's very rich father died when Talbot was a schoolboy of 16. All his father's real and personal estate was left to Talbot's mother. She lived until 1912 when he was aged 51.
Education and marriage
Talbot was educated at Eton College and inherited his titles when only sixteen years of age. Aged nineteen he eloped with an older married woman, Ellen née Palmer-Morewood, wife of commoner, Alfred Edward Miller Mundy of Shipley Hall whom she had married in 1873. Ellen was a granddaughter of the 7th Baron Byron, and already had a daughter. Talbot's heir, Lord Ingestre, was born less than three months after the marriage of his parents. Ingestre died in the lifetime of his parents, but had several children including the 21st Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford, the father of the current Earl.
Public offices and honours
In right of his peerage Talbot became Hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland, in which capacity he took part in the coronations of Kings Edward VII and George V, and accompanied the former on his state visit to Dublin in July 1903. He was made KCVO in 1907. He also became High Steward of the Borough of Stafford in 1892.
Equestrian interests
He started his own polo club in 1893. In 1895, he founded the Staffordshire Polo Club at his house, Ingestre Hall. Players included Charles Stanhope, 8th Earl of Harrington, Algernon Burnaby, Captain Daily Fergusson, Captain the Hon. Robert Greville, Gerald Hardy, Albert Jones, Captain "Wendy" Jones, Edward and George Miller, Norman Nickalls, Bertram Portal, Captain Gordon Renton, Jasper Selwyn and John Reid Walker.
''Greyhound'' coach
A devotee of coach driving for several seasons he ran the daily Greyhound coach service the 20 miles from fashionable Buxton Spa to his house, Alton Towers, now the site of a theme park.
Investing in personal transportation
Hansom cabs de luxe
For many years he was in business as a hansom cab owner, his vehicles marked "S.T" and the horses "being of the best possible quality", and he was the first owner to have cabs that were fitted with noiseless tyres operating in London and Paris. To begin with drivers paid £1 a day for the use of the horse and cab keeping the remainder of their takings. In slack periods the drivers would strike asking Talbot for a price reduction. In the summer of 1888 he floated a public listed company, The Shrewsbury and Talbot Cab and Noiseless Tyre Company Limited, to buy two businesses. Firstly the business of cab proprietor and job master worked by the earl himself and secondly the business of The Noiseless Tyre Company Limited, manufacturers of steel and rubber tyres in Manchester and London. In the Spring of 1891 following almost annual strikes by his cab drivers Talbot put his company's 300 horses up for sale, under police protection, in the company's Battersea premises. At that time they operated from a number of yards in different parts of London. The press reported the terms offered to drivers in detail then the prices of the horses and advised that every animal put up for sale had been sold. Strong competition from other rubber tyred cabs seems to have become a serious problem. The business was restarted in October 1891 with cabmen friendly to the company.
Motoring
In November 1900 Talbot formed another public listed company, Shrewsbury S T and Challiner Tyre Company Limited, to manufacture and deal in cabs, carriages, motor cars, cycles, vehicles, tyres, tubes, wire, India rubber and gutta percha goods etc. In December 1903 he was described in a court action brought by Dunlop over the importation of Michelin tyres as "proprietor of the business known as Maison Talbot in London's Long Acre managed by Mr Weigel." In March 1901 he formed British Automobile Commercial Syndicate Limited "with objects sufficiently indicated by the title". The shareholders were not people of note but provided addresses in the then almost semi-rural Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, Shepherds Bush areas and Hatton Gardens EC. One of the shareholders was a Mr R Weigel of 25 Maxilla Gardens North Kensington, Talbot was the first chairman. The other first directors were M. Chabert, president of the Société Commerciale d'Automobiles, Paris and Mr D M Weigel, managing director. The new premises at 97-98 Long Acre covered "four large floors". Twelve months later Talbot was made chairman of Messrs J Rothschild and Son Limited incorporated to carry on the business of making motor car bodies by expanding the London activities of the well known French businesses of Clément-Rothschild and Messrs J Rothschild and Son. The second floor of the same building was to be Maison Talbot suppliers of Talbot tyres, the third floor to be automobile clothing. In March 1909 he made a formal announcement that he would close the business which could be seen to be competing with his Talbot agents. In 1909 he floated Homoil Trust Limited leading a board of the late engineer-in-chief of the Navy, another colliery owner and a well-known consulting engineer. The company was formed to purchase and develop various patents for the production of a cheaper home-produced and more efficient substitute for petrol made from coal-tar. It was voluntarily wound-up at the end of 1910.
Talbot motorcars
He founded Clément-Talbot Limited in 1903. He built for it the United Kingdom's first purpose-built automotive-manufacturing plant in London's North Kensington with his own personal crest set high above the entrance to the administration building. He involved Adolphe Clément-Bayard as his "engineer" and began by importing his popular French Clément-Bayard cars into Britain. At Brooklands in November 1912 Lord Shrewsbury's Talbot car of only 25.6 horsepower rating driven by Percy Lambert attained a speed of 113.28 miles per hour and broke many other class records. The only faster car on the Brooklands track was a Mercedes-Benz of 84.8 horsepower rating.
The earl died in May 1921, aged sixty, and was buried at the parish church of Ingestre. There then ensued an inheritance battle for his estate between his wife and his grandson. His grandson, the 21st Earl John Chetwynd-Talbot, claimed the late earl had not been of sound mind when his last will was written and won a court settlement. Ellen left the house the late Earl had built for her, 'Cariad' in Goring-on-Thames, moving to 'Cariad cottage' in an equally tranquil setting. Prior to Charles's death he had already bequeathed her the sum of £2000 per month until she died.
