- Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Co Ltd
- Gosforth, Tyne & Wear
- In 1913, with war imminent, Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth Co Ltd, a long-established Newcastle-upon-Tyne-based manufacturing company, created an aviation department at Dukes Moor, Gosforth, to produce Royal Aircraft Factory BE2s for a government order. The company subsequently recruited Dutch engineer Frederick Koolhoven, formerly chief designer at British Deperdussin Co Ltd, and most of the company's wartime output was of Koolhoven-designed aircraft. Flying was conducted from Duke's Moor and later Town Moor, Gosforth. The company's most successful aircraft was the FK8. Koolhoven left the company in 1917 and in 1919, with a post-war falling off in orders, the aviation department was closed. It had produced 1,275 aircraft. Meanwhile, Armstrong Whitworth had been approached by engine manufacturer John Siddeley of Siddeley-Deasy Motor Car Co Ltd with a view to merger. In 1920 Armstrong Whitworth acquired Siddeley-Deasy and created a parent company - Armstrong Whitworth Development Co Ltd - with two subsidiary companies, the renamed Armstrong Siddeley Motors Ltd and the new Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Co Ltd. Aircraft were produced initially at the Siddeley-Deasy factory at Parkside, Coventry, and from 1923 at the former Whitley airfield, Coventry. The aircraft company prospered making advances in metal construction and John Siddeley, objecting to the profits being used to subsidise Armstrong Whitworth's other companies, bought the Armstrong Whitworth Development Co in 1926; he changed the company's name to the Armstrong Siddeley Development Co in 1927. Following John Siddeley's retirement from the board in 1935, Hawker Aircraft Ltd bought all of his shares in the business and thus took a controlling interest in its aviation activities forming a new public holding company Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Co Ltd. The constituent companies continued to produce aircraft of their own design under their own names as part of Hawker Siddeley Aircraft. The Whitley factory was joined by new facilities at both Baginton and Bitteswell airfields in the 1950s for the production of small jet aircraft such as the Hawker Hunter, Hawker Sea Hawk and the Gloster Meteor for the Royal Air Force. In 1961 the merger of Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Co Ltd and the Gloster Aircraft Co Ltd created a Hawker Siddeley subsidiary, known as Whitworth Gloster Aircraft Ltd. Two years later further consolidation led to it becoming the Avro Whitworth Division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation.
- Principal and significant aircraft manufactured: FK1 Sissit (1914); FK3 Little Ack (1915); FK6 (1916); FK8 Big Ack (1916); FK9 (1916); FK10 Quadriplane (1917); R25r Airship (1917); Armadillo (1918); R29 Airship (1918); Ara (1919); Tadpole (1919); Siskin (1919); R33 - Airship (1919); Sinaia (1921); Awana (1923); Wolf (1923); Atlas (1925); Ajax (1925); Ape (1926); Argosy (1926); AW14 Starling (1927); AW16 (1930); AW17 Aries (1930); AW15 Atalanta (1932); AW19 (1934); AW23 (1935); AW35 Scimitar (1935); AW29 (1936); AW38 Whitley (1936); AW27 Ensign (1938); AW41 Albemarle (1940); AW52 (1947); AW55 Apollo (1949); AW650/AW660 Argosy (1959).
- O Tapper, Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft since 1913 (1988).
Various records 1919-35.
General arrangement plans 1957-59; brochures and marketing materials 1926-60; staff magazine, Avro News 1951-62; customer magazine, 748 Journal 1960-65.
Memorandum and articles of association 1950 [L001-2416: 4477]; certificates of incorporation 1920, 1953 [L001-2416: 6515-6]; general meetings minute book 1930-66 [L001-2416: 6515]; register of seals 1923-61 [L001-2416: 6515]; register of members, mortgages and charges 1935-66 [L001-2416: 6515]; debenture trust deed 1938 [L001-2416: 6516]; cancelled share certificates 1920-62 [L001-2416: 6515]; signed accounts 1921-55 [L001-2416: 6515]; reorganisation agreement n.d. [L001-2416: 6516]; share transfer forms 1920-59 [L001-2416: 6515]; agreement re preference and ordinary shares 1927 [L001-2416: 6516]; various agreements 1934-59 [L001-2416: 6516]; capital assistance agreements 1952-55; drawing registers n.d.; technical drawings, AW 27, AW 52, Albemarle, Argosy, Ensign, Siskin and Whitley [MAC11031-11043, MAC048025-048847]; licence re use of patent in Sea Hawk 1957; contract with EMI Electronics re computer 1958; powers of attorney, C S Emery, 1949-59; contracts re utilities 1950s; Aircraft Research Association: membership 1952, supplemental agreement 1958; pension trust deed, H M Woodhams 1955 [L001-2416: 6515]; house magazine, A W Affairs 1950-57 [Library].
Various records n.d. [Trade Literature Collection].