Why did Vickers acquire Supermarine?

Thanks for all the replies. To me it would only seem logical if the very reason for Supermarine’s purchase were the commercial flying boats.

Surprise came today when I found the following at the pages of Spitfire Society (http://www.spitfiresociety.demon.co.uk/supermar.htm)

In 1928, with Supermarine showing itself to be an aircraft company to be reckoned with, but with some financial difficulties, an offer was made by Vickers (aviation) Ltd to partner Supermarine in the development of high speed flight. Consequently the company became Vickers Supermarine Ltd. of Woolston, Southampton.

With the new Rolls-Royce ‘R’ engine put into a redesigned S.5 aircraft a new plane was built and called the S.6. On the 7th September 1929, at Calshot, at least a million people saw the S.6 win the Schneider Trophy race for the second time in a row for Britain. One more win and the trophy would be Britain’s to keep.

After problems with the government withdrawing their support for the air race followed by the society of British Aircraft Constructors it looked like Supermarine would not have the financial backing required to build a contender for the 1931 Schneider contest. Fortunately the highly patriotic, very flamboyant and, more importantly, rich Lady Houston stepped in with a cheque for £100,000 for the British contender. This was very important not only for the Schneider Trophy but also for Supermarine’s and Mitchell’s study on high speed fighters for the Royal Air Force.

This text suggests that by 1928 Supermarine had financial difficulties due to their participation in high-speed racing, but Vickers came in to support just that programme.

Another interesting detail is the mention of the Government supporting the development Schneider racers financially. And who were the society of British Aircraft Constructors?

It would seem that the jury is still out on this one. :confused:

British aircraft engine manufacturers mergers (alphabetical, and in brief):

Armstrong Siddeley Motors Ltd
1917 formed to manufacture aircraft engines
1959 merged with Bristol Aero-Engines Ltd

Blackburn Engines Ltd
1937 Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co Ltd purchased the Cirrus-Hermes company, which made aircraft engines, and created separate engine division
1960 purchased by Hawker Siddeley Group Ltd
1961 purchased from HSG by Bristol Siddeley Engines LTD

Bristol Aero-Engines Ltd
1920 Bristol Aeroplanes begins manufacture of aircraft engines
1956 engine division of Bristol Aeroplanes was renamed to Bristol Aero Engines
1959 merged with Armstrong Siddeley Motors Ltd

Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd
1958 formed to administer Bristol Aero-Engines Ltd and Armstrong Siddeley Motors Ltd
1959 formally merged Bristol Aero-Engines Ltd and Armstrong Siddeley Motors Ltd
1961 purchased Blackburn Engines LTD and The de Havilland Engine Company
1966 purchased by Rolls-Royce LTD

The de Havilland Engine Company
1941 The de Havilland Company begins manufacture of jet engines for Vampire
1944 The de Havilland Engine Company spun off from parent
1961 purchased by Bristol Siddeley Engines LTD

D. Napier & Son LTD
1808 founded to make printing machines
1903 begins manufacture of automobiles
1914 begins manufacture of aircraft engines
? acquired by English Electric group [pre-1954]
1961 partnership with Rolls-Royce LTD ends engine involvement

Metrovick
1919 Metropolitan Vickers formed as a subsidiary of the Westinghouse group
1947 withdrew from the field of aircraft engine production

Napier Aero-Engines Ltd
1961 formed by partnership of D. Napier & Son LTD and Rolls-Royce LTD
1962 acquired by Rolls-Royce LTD

Power Jets
1936 formed by Frank Whittle to develop his pioneering jet engine designs
1944 nationalized, and slowly broken up

Rolls-Royce LTD
1906 founded to manufacture automobiles
1915 begins manufacture of aircraft engines
1961 partnership with D. Napier & Son LTD
1962 purchased Napier Aero-Engines Ltd
1966 purchased Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd

British aircraft manufacturers mergers (alphabetical, and in brief):

Airbus (International)
1970 Consortium of France’s Aerospatiale and Deutsche Airbus form Airbus, CASA of Spain join shortly afterwards
1979 British Aerospace joined Airbus Industrie
2001 Airbus becomes single fully integrated company owned by EADS and BAE Systems
2006 BAE Systems announces plan to sell all Airbus shares and withdraw

AirCo
1912 Aircraft Manufacturing Co established by George Holt Thomas
1914 Captain Geoffrey de Havilland joins as chief designer
1920 Airco sold to BSA, de Havilland starts own company

Armstrong, Whitworth
1897 Sir W.G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co Ltd founded in Newcastle upon Tyne
1919 Armstrong Whitworth buys Siddeley Deasy of Coventry
1935 Company sold to Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Co
1961 Merged with the Gloster Aircraft Co Ltd within the Hawker Siddeley group

Avro
1910 A.V.Roe & Company Limited
1963 Avro becomes part of Hawker Siddeley Aviation

BAC (British Aircraft Corporation)
1960 Company formed by merger of English Electric, Bristol and Vickers after government states TSR.2 will only be bought from merged group. Hunting Aircraft “join” (purchased)
1977 Merged into British Aerospace

British Aircraft Manufacturing Co
1933 The British Klemm Aeroplane Co Ltd formed in February
1935 Company name changed to British Aircraft Manufacturing Co Ltd
1938 Company brought out by General Aircraft Ltd

Bristol
1910 The British and Colonial Aeroplane Company Ltd formed (BCAC)
1920 BCAC liquidated, assets transferred to The Bristol Aeroplane Company Ltd
1960 Bristol Aircraft Ltd become part of British Aircraft Corporation

Blackburn
1914 Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co Ltd
1949 Blackburn merge with General Aircraft Ltd
1963 Blackburn is taken over by Hawker Siddeley Group

Boulton Paul
1915 Boulton & Paul form aircraft department
1934 Boulton & Paul sell aircraft division. Division becomes Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd
1961 Boulton Paul merge with Dowty Group to form Dowty Boulton Paul Ltd and then Dowty Aerospace

BAE (British Aerospace)
1977 Government forces BAC, Hawker Siddeley and Scottish Aviation into British Aerospace
1999 British Aerospace merge with part of GEC to form BAE Systems
de Havilland
1908 Geoffrey de Havilland builds two aircraft before joining Balloon Factory (later Royal Aircraft Factory) in 1910
1920 Company founded
1959 de Havilland company becomes a division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation

English Electric
1918 English Electric Company Ltd formed from amalgamation of Dick Kerr, Pheonix Dynamo, Coventry Ordnance Works Ltd
1938 Aircraft work restarts (suspended 1926) with Hampden aircraft order for RAF expansion programme
1958 Aircraft division separated from parent company as English Electric Aviation Ltd
1960 English Electric becomes part of British Aircraft Corporation

Fairey
1916 Fairey Aviation Co Ltd
1960 Aircraft Activities taken over by Westland Aircraft

Folland Aircraft
1936 Formed at Hamble in 1936 as British Marine Aircraft Ltd. (associated with British Aircraft Manufacturing Co.Ltd)
1937 Company formed by renaming British Marine Aircraft Ltd.
1959 Company taken over by Hawker Siddeley Aviation

General Aircraft
1934 Company formed to take over assets of Monospar Wing Co
1949 Merger with Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Co

Gloster
1917 H.H.Martyn and Co set up aircraft company The Gloucestershire Aircraft Company Limited
1926 Gloucestershire Aircraft Company renamed Gloster Aircraft Company
1934 Hawker Aircraft Ltd take-over Gloster
1961 Gloster merged with Armstrong Whitworth to form Whitworth Gloster Aircraft Company
1963 Gloster name disappears with formation of Avro Whitworth Division

Handley Page
1909 Handley Page Limited formed
1948 Miles Aircraft Limited is bought and named Handley Page (Reading) Limited
1970 Handley Page Limited closes

Hawker Aircraft
1920 H.G. Hawker Engineering Co. Ltd formed (formerly Sopwith)
1933 Name changed to Hawker Aircraft Ltd
1935 Becomes owned by Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Ltd
1960 Hawker name replaced by Hawker Siddeley

Hawker Siddeley [The 1st big merger!]
1934 Company formed as Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Co Ltd on purchase by Hawker Aircraft of Gloster Aircraft, Armstrong Siddeley Development Co Ltd., Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, and A V Roe
1955 Company renamed Hawker Siddeley Group Ltd
1959 Folland “join group” (swallowed)
1960 De Havilland and Blackburn companies “join group” (absorbed)
1963 Original company names lost with production of aircraft by Hawker Siddeley Aviation
1977 Enforced merger with BAC and Scottish Aviation to form British Aerospace

Hunting Percival
1933 Percival Aircraft Co founded
1936 Company restructured as Percival Aircraft Ltd and moves to Luton
1944 Company becomes part of Hunting Group
1954 Name changed to Hunting Percival Aircraft
1957 Company renamed Hunting Aircraft
1960 Controlling interest purchased by British Aircraft Corporation

Miles
1933 Phillips & Powis create Phillips & Powis Aircraft Ltd after F G Miles visits their airfield. Aircraft produced with Miles name
1943 Name changed to Miles Aircraft
1947 Company enters receivership. Handley Page take over assets

Saunders-Roe
1910 Cowes boatbuilding firm S.E. Saunders becomes involved in building aircraft
1928 Controlling interest in S.E. Saunders acquired by A.V. Roe and John Lord
1929 Company name changed to Saunders-Roe Limited, usually abbreviated to Saro
1959 Saro taken over by Westland

Scottish Aviation
1933 Company formed to operate a flying school
1938 Factory opens to begin overhaul, modification and subcontract work
1977 Nationalised and became part of British Aerospace

Short Brothers
1908 Short Brothers Ltd founded
1943 Company acquired by government and renamed Short Brothers & Harland Ltd
1989 Government sells interests in Shorts to Bombardier

Sopwith Aviation
1912 T.O.M.Sopwith forms Sopwith Aviation Co assisted by Fred Sigrist and Harry Hawker
1920 Company is liquidated because of large war-profit tax bill and resumes under name H.G.Hawker Engineering

Supermarine
1913 Company formed as Pemberton-Billing, Limited
1916 Company renamed The Supermarine Aviation Works Limited
1928 Company acquired by Vickers (Aviation) Ltd, becomes Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd
1938 Company taken over by Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd
1963 Last Supermarine aircraft built

Vickers
1867 Vickers Sons and Company incorporated in Sheffield
1897 Company renamed Vickers Sons and Maxim Limited
1908 Company submits proposal for rigid airship
1911 Company renamed Vickers Limited and aircraft works established
1960 Vickers Aircraft interests become owned by British Aircraft Corporation
1965 Vickers name dropped

Westland
1915 Westland Aircraft Works formed as division of Petters Ltd
1935 Westland Aircraft Limited formed
1959 acquires Saro
1994 Westland Aircraft bought by GKN

Martin W: 1. Why did Vickers purchase so small a company, especially one specializing solely in seaplanes?
2. What was the expected benefit for Vickers of that acquisition? I find it hard to believe it was the racing seaplanes they were after…

Pondskater: Was it that Supermarine built seaplanes and Vickers didn’t. Yes. JDK: Not my area: but spot on!

S.Ritchie (AHB/MoD), Industry & Air Power,Cass,1997. P.14: “it was widely held in the later 1920s that the future of large aircraft lay with the flying boat and, in 1928, Vickers (Ltd) decided to gain access to this market by purchasing one of the established (f-b) firms”. P.11 spells out why not another, and tabulates Supermarine’s sales/profits, 1923-27.
3.Was Supermarine profitable between 1928-1936? Results were buried inside Vickers Ltd, the armourer, in which Vickers (Aviation) Ltd. embraced Weybridge and Supermarine to March,1937. After 1929 it had “no financial worries at all” P.15
4. Why was S’marine allowed to continue their business entirely independently of V Aviation for so many years? MD of both, Sir Robert McLean, “sometimes pooled their design resources…Wellington benefited from design experience (on Stranraer)“. P.15. McKinstry has RM, embarrassed at disorganisation under Mitchell, sending Barnes Wallis in, New Year, 1929, put in a corner when RJM came back.

XN923: Surprising (that) none of the other S’marine military landplane designs really worked out. McClean was fired in October,1938, Vickers (Aviation) Ltd and S’marine, were wound up, S becoming a Divn. of V-A. He was seen to have been over-proprietorial to his products, hampering A.M.’s intent to bring “sub-contractors” (we would say: licenced assembly sites) into their products. Soon Westland took on Seafire and Sister Firm for early marks, liberating Joe Smith’s team to do laminar wings and Griffon variants…which they did so well that one was contracted with Nene (to be Attacker), morphing into Swift. That failure was due to your choice of:
– V-S failing to grasp the Weapon System concept;
– V-A (Geo.Edwards’) attention being on Weybridge products;
– MoS failing to deliver guns, engines, vendor items, on Spec, on-time.
Scimitar was cut back, in part due to delay, in part to Bucc taking strike and F-4B being longed for. Edwards shut Hursley Park to concentrate his TSR.2 resource in one place, the better to deal with EE in what became BAC.

MARK 12 rightly recommends ‘Spitfire – Portrait of a Legend’ by Leo McKinstry – a combination of ops anecdotes and business history drawing on fresh sources. M.12 has omitted to tell you that in all your Aero reading this will be the most gripping opening.

This from Wiki:
Hubert Scott-Paine was about 18 he met Noel Pemberton-Billing and worked for him as his assistant in the buying and selling of yachts. This entailed travel all over Europe and the Mediterranean, whilst living on one of Pemberton-Billing’s yachts at Southampton, and gaining much engineering experience. Hubert and Pemberton-Billing were also interested in aviation and in 1913 they created Pemberton-Billing Ltd (with ‘Supermarine’ as the telegraphic address) with plans to build flying boats, Hubert being appointed manager of the factory at Woolston, Hampshire.

In 1914 the first aircraft, the PB1, was built in record time and exhibited at Olympia, being viewed by King George V and Winston Churchill. However the plane never flew, although orders were received from Germany. The war intervened and a land-based plane, the PB9, was designed and built within a week – although this flew there were no buyers.

In 1916 Pemberton-Billing sold the company to Hubert Scott-Paine who registered it under the name Supermarine Aviation Company Limited. The company then concentrated on designing and building flying boats for the British Admiralty. One of the engineers taken on in 1917 was Reginald Mitchell who later designed the Spitfire. Supermarine ended the war as a large and successful company.
When the Royal Aero Club announced in August 1919 that the next contest for the Jacques Schneider Trophy would be held in September Scott-Paine immediately upgraded a Supermarine ‘Baby’ single-engined flying boat, renaming it ‘Sea Lion’, but during the race the hull was damaged and the Italian entrant won.

Supermarine won the Schneider Trophy in 1922 with its ‘Sea Lion II’, thereby preventing Italy keeping the trophy permanently for winning it 3 times in succession, and allowing Britain to win it outright years later.

Scott-Paine sold Supermarine for £192,000 on 16 November 1923. On 31 March 1924 Imperial Airways was formed by the merger of Scott-Paine’s British Marine Air Navigation Company and three other airlines, and he was a director of Imperial Airways until 1939

Scott-Paine then concentrated on his MTB designs during the war years.

Not sure how much the various arms of Vickers had to do with each other but the fact that they had a successful ship-building company and a successful aircraft building company must have made the absence of a division specialising in marine aircraft quite obvious, particularly given the apparently bright future for flying boats as a major form of intercontinental transport.

It’s interesting in retrospect that F.4/34 seems to have persuaded a number of companies that designing fighter aircraft was not for them, Vickers being one. The gulf between the Venom and the Spitfire probably persuaded them that Supermarine could handle the fighter side of things! Surprising therefore that none of the other Supermarine military landplane designs really worked out. I would have thought it was within Vickers’ interests to make sure that the likes of the Spiteful, Swift and Scimitar were effective and the four engined bombers and twin engined fighters had a better chance of success? Bit OT, sorry.

The developments of the various British aero companies between 1919 and 1939 are a very complex and IMHO poorly covered area. The combination of many into Hawker Siddeley (in 1935, rather than is often misunderstood, postwar) for instances isn’t often appreciated, and the effects of that grouping on the various designs is usually missed.

I may be completely wrong, but my impression is that small companies couldn’t normally survive in the economic straits of the period, so they were taken over, by what we’d now regard as conglomerates. Many of them had other (non aircraft) interests or branches, as well.

‘The Paladins’ by John James and ‘Aces Erks and Backroom Boys’ by Edward Smithies both look at this area, among others. The first takes a remarkably interesting and cogent economic/political look at the inter-war RAF’s development, while the latter is firsthand oral history, including many well places in the businesses and factories, including Fairey, Supermarines and Vickers management among others.

Not my area, but I hope that helps.

Was Reginald Mitchell sufficient reason for purchasing the entire company and then waiting six-eight more years for their first mass-production contract?

I think there is a danger here of using too much hindsight. Mitchell’s reputation is based on the success of the S6B and the Spitfire, as we see it today. But what was his reputation at the time of the take over? To answer the question needs a view of what the two company’s ambitions were in 1928.

In 1927 Alan Cobham flew a Short Singapore to South Africa – gaining experience and understanding for the use of flying boats on what later became the Empire Flying Boat’s routes. And, of course, Supermarine had built aircraft for Imperial Airways (Sea Eagle).

I am speculating here but I wonder if the fact that Supermarine built seaplanes and Vickers didn’t, made the pair a natural fit at a time when it was thought flying boats would be the answer to long distance flights. That way they weren’t just getting a designer, but his team, and the rest of a workforce with experience in building flying boats.

Allan

Clearly Reginald Mitchell and Barnes Wallis were not the best of chums.

I remember that the biography of Barnes Wallis also hinted at this, it has been a while since I’ve read it though.

Another point to ponder: in these days we speak very easily about merging two companies as we are aware of the benefits (and pitfalls) of such an operation. I for one don’t know what the view on mergers was in those days but perhaps in the 1930’s company culture it wasn’t such an obvious choice as it is today. Certainly the practical issues involved were more complicated then than they would be now.

Have you tried the just released book ‘Spitfire – Portrait of a Legend’ by Leo McKinstry? 435 pages with a sprinkling of well aired images.

Some fascinating insights in to the politics of the time.

Clearly Reginald Mitchell and Barnes Wallis were not the best of chums.

Mark

According to the biography written by his son Gordon, there was a stipulation that “RJ”, remained in the employ of Supermarine,and indeed he had signed a 10 year contract with them in 1923, with a clause that said, if he left their employ, he may not enter any company or, the employ of any individual, involved in work similar to that of Supermarine, without the directors written consent.

Apparently, they had quite a promising designer.

This is also what I’ve read somewhere, but I wonder how much true there is to this statement. Was Reginald Mitchell sufficient reason for purchasing the entire company and then waiting six-eight more years for their first mass-production contract?

Apparently, they had quite a promising designer.

Nice site Martin and very interesting questions, shame I can’t seem to answer a single one!

Looking forward to the replies though.