• Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd

Noel Pemberton Billing was a lawyer, inventor and seller of steam yachts who, as a result of a wager, had learned to fly in a single day in 1913. Later that year he established Pemberton-Billing Ltd at Woolston, Southampton, to manufacture flying boats, adopting the name Supermarine for his aircraft as the logical opposite of submarine. During the First World War the firm designed and produced a fighter and despite some early failures the company eventually saw success with the PB25, a single-seat scout aircraft, in 1915. Pemberton-Billing meanwhile lost interest in aviation having been elected a Member of Parliament. In 1916 he sold the company to his factory manager, Hubert Scott-Paine, who renamed it Supermarine Aviation Works Ltd. A number of seaplane projects were undertaken under chief designer Reginald J Mitchell, who joined the company in 1917. Gradually Supermarine Aviation Works turned its attention to the design and production of racing aircraft, in particular the Sea Lion. In 1922 the company finally won its first Schneider Trophy with a Sea Lion Mk2 and a number of various radical designs followed, mainly created to contest government-sponsored competitions. In 1923 the firm was acquired by aircraft pioneer Squadron Commander James Bird. In 1928 Supermarine Aviation Works was taken over by Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd and renamed Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd. Bird remained managing director and Mitchell continued as chief designer. As a direct result of their racing activities the company secured orders from the newly-formed Fleet Air Arm for the Southampton flying boat, its most successful interwar aircraft. Mitchell meanwhile created the S6B for the Schneider Trophy contest of 1931, and the Supermarine Walrus, a catapult-launched amphibian fleet spotter. In 1936 he designed the famous Supermarine Spitfire of which over 20,000 were built. In 1939, due to government and company concerns over delays in the Spitfire and Wellington manufacturing programmes, Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd's aviation businesses - Vickers (Aviation) Ltd and Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd - were reorganised as Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd and subsequently wound up, although Supermarine continued to design, build and trade under its own name. Supermarine struggled with unfulfilled projects in the military jet era after the Second World War and its last aircraft was the Scimitar in 1956.