A bloody paralyser

In the First World War the Admiralty asked Frederick Handley Page for what it called a “bloody paralyser of an aeroplane”, something big enough to bomb the Zeppelin sheds and, one day, Berlin. The O/100 of 1915 and the O/400 that followed gave Britain its first true heavy bombers, about 600 in all, and the four-engined V/1500 could reach Berlin, though it entered service just as the war ended. The man behind them, a furniture maker’s son from Cheltenham, would become known as the father of the heavy bomber.

Airlines, slats and a film studio

His company, registered on 17 June 1909, was the first publicly traded aircraft manufacturer in Britain. After 1918 it turned bombers into airliners, flying converted O/400s between London and Paris as Handley Page Transport, which in 1924 became part of Imperial Airways. The stately H.P.42 biplanes later carried Imperial passengers towards Africa and India. Meanwhile Handley Page’s leading-edge slat, which kept wings flying at high angles of attack, earned so much in licence fees that it was the firm’s main income in the early 1920s. The Cricklewood works later became Britain’s largest film studio.

Halifax

The Second World War brought the Hampden, 1,430 built, which flew in the first British raid on Berlin, and then the Halifax. Begun as a twin-engined design for the troublesome Rolls-Royce Vulture, it was recast with four engines before the prototype flew on 25 October 1939. Including aircraft from other factories, 6,178 were built, making it Britain’s second most numerous heavy bomber after the Lancaster. In 1948, 41 civilian Halifax freighters flew in the Berlin Airlift.

The bomber that went supersonic

Handley Page’s nuclear-age answer was the Victor, the crescent-winged V-bomber that first flew on 24 December 1952. On 1 June 1956 test pilot Johnny Allam let the nose of XA917 drop at high power and saw Mach 1.1; observers from Watford to Banbury heard the boom, and the Victor became the largest aircraft yet to break the sound barrier. Converted to tankers, Victors refuelled the Vulcans of the 1982 Black Buck raids on the Falklands, and they served until 15 October 1993.

Too proud to merge

By the 1960s the government wanted Britain’s aircraft industry concentrated into two groups, Hawker Siddeley and the British Aircraft Corporation. Handley Page alone refused to merge. It bet its future on the Jetstream, a small pressurised turboprop for American feeder airlines that first flew on 18 August 1967. The bet came too late: the company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1970 after 61 years under the same name. Scottish Aviation took the Jetstream on, and under British Aerospace it outlived its creator by decades.

Factories

• Cricklewood works and aerodrome · Cricklewood, north London — From 1912; aerodrome closed 1929 and became Cricklewood Studios; parts made until 1964
• Radlett Aerodrome · Radlett, Hertfordshire — Final assembly from 1929; runway extended in 1939 for the Halifax
• Handley Page (Reading) · Woodley, Reading — Former Miles site bought in 1947; birthplace of the Herald

People

• Sir Frederick Handley Page · founder — 1885–1962; knighted 1942
• Gustav Lachmann · aerodynamicist — Co-inventor of the slat, later employed by Handley Page
• Johnny Allam · test pilot — Took a Victor supersonic in 1956

Records and firsts

• Victor XA917 exceeded Mach 1 on 1 June 1956, the largest aircraft to break the sound barrier at the time
• V/1500 Atlantic carried the first airmail from Canada to the United States, 9 October 1919