The tramway king meets Wilbur Wright

In 1909, in France, a Bristol businessman who ran the city’s trams happened to meet Wilbur Wright. Sir George White came home convinced that aeroplanes were a business, not a hobby. In February 1910 he founded the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company with his brother Samuel and his son Stanley, putting up the entire £25,000 of capital themselves so that nervous tramway shareholders would not have to. The first factory was a pair of tram sheds at Filton, leased from the tramway company, and the works manager, George Challenger, was borrowed from the trams too. Unlike most early aviation ventures, run by enthusiasts on a shoestring, Bristol was properly funded from the first day.

The Boxkite and half of Britain’s pilots

The first aeroplane was a flop: a French Zodiac biplane that managed one brief hop in May 1910, for which Sir George extracted 15,000 francs in compensation. Challenger then drew a design based on Henri Farman’s biplane in little more than a week, and the Boxkite flew at Larkhill that summer. Seventy-six to 78 were built, sold to the War Office and to foreign governments, and used in Bristol’s own flying schools at Brooklands and Larkhill. By 1914, 308 of the 664 Royal Aero Club certificates issued in Britain had been earned at Bristol schools. The Romanian engineer Henri Coandă became chief designer in 1912, and a quiet young man called Frank Barnwell joined the firm that year.

The Brisfit and the engine nobody wanted

Barnwell would design for Bristol until his death in 1938. His great war machine was the F.2B Fighter, the Brisfit, a rugged two-seater that turned out more than 5,300 times and served the RAF until 1931. When the war ended, the Air Ministry nudged Bristol into buying the aero-engine arm of the bankrupt Cosmos Engineering for £15,000. It came with a team led by Roy Fedden and a nine-cylinder radial called the Jupiter. Between the wars the engine division outshone the aircraft side. More than 7,100 Jupiters were built, powering aircraft from many other makers, and Fedden’s sleeve-valve Hercules later ran to some 57,400.

A newspaper baron orders a bomber

In 1934 Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, challenged British industry to build what he called the fastest commercial aeroplane in Europe, if not the world. Bristol obliged, and Rothermere paid about £18,500 for a sleek twin-engined Type 142 he named Britain First. When it flew from Filton in April 1935 it reached 307 mph, faster than any fighter in RAF service. Rothermere presented it to the nation, and the Air Ministry turned it into the Blenheim bomber. More than 4,400 were built. On 11 March 1940 a Blenheim became the first RAF aircraft to sink a U-boat, but advances soon left it vulnerable in daylight.

Night fighters and the world’s biggest factory

Barnwell was killed in August 1938 flying a light aircraft of his own design, and Leslie Frise took over. By the outbreak of war, Filton was the largest single aircraft factory in the world, with almost 25 hectares of floor space. The Blenheim begat the Beaufort torpedo bomber, and the Beaufort begat the Beaufighter, a heavy twin with four 20 mm cannon in its belly and room in its nose for the first bulky interception radars. It became one of the most effective night fighters of its era. Shadow factories at Weston-super-Mare and an underground engine works in a Wiltshire quarry helped turn out 5,928 Beaufighters.

The Brabazon and the village that vanished

Peace brought ambition on a colossal scale. The Brabazon airliner had a wingspan of 230 feet, wider than a Boeing 747, eight Centaurus engines and the first fully powered flying controls. Filton’s runway was too short, so it was stretched to 8,000 feet, and the inhabitants of the village of Charlton were compulsorily moved to make way. A vast assembly hall, then the largest hangar in the world, was built beside it. The Brabazon flew on 4 September 1949 with chief test pilot Bill Pegg in command. Nobody ordered it, and it was scrapped in 1953. The Freighter, a stubby twin that carried holidaymakers’ cars across the Channel, sold 214.

The Whispering Giant and the end of the name

The Britannia should have been Bristol’s triumph. Ordered by BOAC in 1949 and first flown in August 1952, the big turboprop was so quiet outside that it was nicknamed the Whispering Giant. But two prototypes were lost, the second in the mud of the Severn Estuary, and engine icing delayed service until February 1957, by which time pure jets had arrived; only 85 were built. In 1960, under government pressure, Bristol’s aircraft business merged into the British Aircraft Corporation, its helicopters went to Westland and its engines to Bristol Siddeley. The Type 188 steel research jet and Bristol’s supersonic airliner studies lived on, the latter feeding into Concorde.

Fabrieken

• Filton works · Filton, north of Bristol — Began in two former tram sheds in 1910; by 1939 the largest single aircraft factory in the world; Brabazon hangar and 8,000 ft runway added after 1945
• Brislington tramway works · Brislington, Bristol — Second factory before 1914
• Fishponds engine works · Fishponds, Bristol — Former Cosmos Engineering plant, nucleus of the engine division from 1920
• Oldmixon shadow factory · Weston-super-Mare — Built Beaufighters and Blenheims in the war; helicopter division from 1955; now The Helicopter Museum
• Hawthorn underground works · near Corsham, Wiltshire — Engine factory in a former stone quarry; little output before closing in 1945
• Larkhill and Brooklands flying schools · Salisbury Plain and Surrey — Bristol’s pre-1914 flying schools

Mensen

• Sir George White · founder — Chairman of Bristol Tramways; founded the company in 1910; died 1916
• Stanley White · co-founder, managing director — Ran the company after his father’s death in 1916
• George Challenger · works manager and first designer — Drew the Boxkite in about a week
• Henri Coandă · chief designer 1912–1914 — Romanian engineer behind the Coanda monoplanes
• Frank Barnwell · chief designer — Designed the F.2B, Bulldog and Blenheim; killed in 1938 flying his own light aircraft
• Roy Fedden · chief engine designer — Came with Cosmos in 1920; Jupiter, Mercury, Pegasus, Hercules
• Leslie Frise · chief designer from 1938 — Beaufighter, Brabazon
• Archibald Russell · designer — Brabazon and Britannia; later Concorde
• Raoul Hafner · helicopter designer — Led the helicopter division from 1944: Sycamore, Belvedere
• Bill Pegg · chief test pilot — Flew the Brabazon on 4 September 1949

Records en primeurs

• Nine world altitude records with the Type 138, peaking at 53,937 ft on 30 June 1937
• Type 142 Britain First reached 307 mph in 1935, faster than any RAF fighter of the day
• A Blenheim became the first RAF aircraft to sink a U-boat, 11 March 1940
• Filton was the largest single aircraft manufacturing unit in the world in 1939
• Brabazon: first aircraft with 100 per cent powered flying controls; wingspan 35 ft greater than a Boeing 747
• Silver City Airways Freighters averaged 2,970 landings and take-offs each in 1954