Crossley Tom Thumb

Fantastic! Many, many thanks chaps. Any chance of posting the “grungy” picture?
I wonder if the Crossley family were behind the scrapping of a Tiger Moth in Banbury too? (will look up registration tonight when I get home)

Working from memory without the aid of notes so forgive me the odd error.

The Crossley Tom Thumb was built by Michael Crossley of Banbury about 1937.

He was a member of THE Crossley family that had built cars, lorries, buses etc. and had purchased Avro Ltd. until, in turn, was bought by John Siddeley (Armstrong Siddeley Motors/Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft) thus creating one of the roots of the Hawker Siddeley Group.

Mike Crossley went to one of the pre war aeronautical schools and with his father had started building an HM.14 Pou du Ciel but, like nearly everyone else in Britain that had started one, gave up when there were a couple of fatal crashes. He commenced his own design called Tom Thumb a single engine, single seat, high wing cabin monoplane and the wooden airframe was complete (but uncovered) when the project was halted by the start of the war. The design appears to owe nothing to the HM.14 (except perhaps it’s pair of wheels which were “borrowed” for, and still fitted to, MAPS/MAMs HM.14 G-AEGV) and can, perhaps be likened to a Luton Minor with a cabin.
The uncompleted airframe was acquired, after the war, by a gent in Coventry, who intended to complete it but this never happened. It later found it’s way into the hands of an antique dealer in Bewdley, Shropshire from whom the Midland Aircraft Preservation Society acquired it in 1968(?).
When we first saw it we mistakenly thought it was an incomplete Civilian Coupe. It remains stored with the MAPS’ successor the Midland Air Museum.

On the face of it the Tom Thumb sounds an unimportant, unfinished aircraft project.

However consider not only it’s connection with one of Britain’s famous motor companies but that Mike Crossley went on to become an accomplished fighter pilot in the RAF and fought in the Battle of Britain. How much of his skill as pilot/airman came from his past technical training and homebuilding projects?
He retired as a Wing Commander and emigrated to South Africa. I believe he died about 10 years ago.

Roger Smith.

PS that “grungy” photograph is one of mine taken outside the MAPS workshop (a hired, large garage) in Berkeley Road, Coventry shortly after acquisition.

Ken Ellis to the rescue!!

A quick dip into his ‘British Homebuilt Aircraft’ (1979) shows it was built in Banbury in 1937, of all wood construction. The very grungy photo shows what looks like a cab of a wooden narrow-gauge loco which has reversed into the jib of a small wooden crane.

It appears as though it may have been quite Auster-like, had it ever been completed.