A monoplane on the beach

Robert Blackburn was the son of a works manager at a Leeds lawnmower and steamroller maker. After an engineering degree at Leeds University he built a monoplane and made his first short hop on the beach between Saltburn and Marske in the spring of 1909; the next year he crashed it trying to turn. A second monoplane, flown at Filey, made his name. His Type D of 1912 is still kept in flying condition by the Shuttleworth Collection, and is the oldest British-built aircraft that survives.

Brough and the torpedo bombers

In 1914 he married Jessy Thompson, and with her help and inheritance founded the Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Company, building first at the Olympia Works in Roundhay, Leeds, and from 1916 at a new factory on the Humber at Brough. Blackburn also ran an early air service between Leeds and Bradford and, from 1919, the North Sea Aerial Navigation Company. But the company’s real customer was the navy. Through the 1920s and 1930s Brough turned out a line of carrier torpedo bombers and spotters: the Dart, the Ripon, the Baffin and the Shark, plus flying boats such as the Iris and Perth.

The Skua sinks the Königsberg

The Skua, first flown in February 1937, was a two-seat monoplane meant to be both naval fighter and dive bomber. It was slow as a fighter, yet on 26 September 1939 three Skuas from Ark Royal shot down a Dornier Do 18 over the North Sea, long credited as the first British air victory of the war. On 10 April 1940 16 Skuas sank the German cruiser Königsberg at Bergen, the first major warship sunk in war by air attack. The Roc, a turret version, and the Botha torpedo bomber, built partly at a new plant at Dumbarton, were far less successful.

Beverley and Buccaneer

After the war came two very different aircraft. The Beverley of 1950, a huge four-engine freighter with a cavernous hold, carried RAF troops and equipment until 1967; 49 were built. The Buccaneer, first flown on 30 April 1958, was a navy strike jet designed to race under enemy radar at sea level. 211 were built, including 16 for South Africa, and after the Royal Navy gave up its big carriers in 1979 the RAF flew them until 1994, including in the 1991 Gulf War.

Absorbed into Hawker Siddeley

Blackburn merged with General Aircraft in 1949, becoming Blackburn and General Aircraft until 1958. In the great British rationalisation of 1960 its aircraft business went to Hawker Siddeley and its engine division to Bristol Siddeley, and in 1963 the Blackburn name disappeared. Robert Blackburn had retired in 1950 and died in 1955. The Brough site passed through Hawker Siddeley to British Aerospace.

מפעלים

• Olympia Works · Roundhay, Leeds — Opened 1914; aircraft flown from an adjacent strip in Roundhay Park
• ברו · Brough, East Riding of Yorkshire — Main factory from 1916
• Barge Park · Dumbarton, Scotland — Built with shipbuilder William Denny; Botha production from 1939
• Sherburn-in-Elmet · North Yorkshire

אֲנָשִׁים

• Robert Blackburn · founder (1885–1955) — First flight on the beach at Marske, 1909
• Jessy Blackburn · co-founder — Her inheritance helped found the 1914 company
• Norman Blackburn · managing director — Robert’s brother

שיאים וראשונות

• Blackburn Type D (1912): oldest surviving British-built aircraft
• Skua: first major warship sunk in war by air attack, cruiser Königsberg, 10 April 1940