One of the duties assigned to Simms was to find a suitable location for the factory. Simms found the Trusty Oil Engine Works, a company in receivership whose six-acre site at Cheltenham included a foundry, a machine shop, and testing facilities.[20][21] Simms recommended buying the works immediately since, with ready facilities and the availability of skilled workers, they could start up in a very short time.[20] Instead, at the first statutory meeting of the company, held while Simms was overseas, Lawson persuaded the board to buy a disused four-storey cotton mill in Coventry which was owned by Lawson's associate Ernest Terah Hooley.[20] Despite Simms' later protest and pleas to sell the mill and buy the Trusty Oil Engine Works, Daimler stayed with the mill as the site of Britain's first automobile factory.[22]