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The Kingston Roller Skating rink in Canbury Park Road purchased by Tommy Sopwith became Sopwith Workshops number 1 in 1912.
Sopwith workers construct tabloid aircraft in the Number 1 workshops (formerly the Roller Skating Rink) in Canbury Park Road in Kingston.
The historic Sopwith Office.
A Sopwith Baby floatplane seen prior to launching outside of another famous Kingston family manufacturers. The boat building facility of R.J. Turk’s & Sons who were involved with Sopwiths carrying out flotation tests on Sopwith aircraft at their Albany Boathouse river frontage near Canbury Gardens.
Sopwith Camel – famous World War One fighter built in Kingston upon Thames. One was exhibited at Kingston’s Market Place as part of the Aviation Festival. It was first time a Sopwith Camel had been in Kingston since 1918.
The façade of the former Hawkers/BAE manufacturing site in the Richmond Road, Kingston.
A Sopwith Baby is tested on the River Thames off Canbury Gardens in Kingston in 1916. This was one of an order of 100 for the Royal Navy, all were tested this way. Note the onlooking crowds on the riverbank in this spring scene.
The famous Richmond Road Hawker’s riverside site (now demolished) where the Hawker aircraft including the Hurricane, Hunter and Harrier were developed and built.
The BAe Hawk was the last all-British aircraft manufactured in Kingston and is still in service today, prominent among users are the RAF Display Team, the Red Arrows.
Brief History of Aviation in Kingston upon Thames The History of Britain would be very different if Thomas Octave Sopwith (he was the 8th child) had not purchased the roller skating rink in Canbury Park Road near Kingston Railway Station South West London in December 1912. The Hawker Hurricane would not have been available to defeat the German Luffwaffe in the Battle of Britain and save the country from invasion. The Harrier Jump Jet would not have been available to shoot down the Argentinean jet fighter bombers over the Falkland Islands. Why did this aircraft designer want to buy a roller skating rink? It was because of the flatness of the roller rink’s surface. It was ideal for chalking out lines on the floor. In the early years of the aviation production planes were built to chalked out lines on the floor. Sopwith was born in 1888 and started his aviation interest at the age of 18 by flying balloons. In 1910 he purchased his first heavier than air monoplane for £630 from Howard Wright. He flew solo for the first time on 22nd October 1910. A pioneering figure in aviation, he won the Baron de Forest prize in 1910 for flying across the English Channel. He later crashed the plane but he had caught the bug. He had a business idea of starting a flying school. He set up business at Brooklands aerodrome and racetrack, Weybridge, Surrey, England. One of his first pupils was Major Trenchard who later went on to run the Royal Air Force as Chief of Air Staff.
Sopwith Charged £75 for a full course. Sopwith started to build aircraft at Brooklands. He built other designers aircraft under licence and the first Sopwith constructed aeroplane took off 4th July 1912.
large Daimler lorry to transport his land based planes to the nearby Brooklands airfield for testing. There are accounts that state he also towed some of his planes to Brooklands behind his car.
During the next six months his confidence as an aircraft manufacture increased and he decided to start designing his own planes. He needed a premises and that is when he found the Kingston Roller Skating Rink. The Skating craze had hit a high two years earlier and now was in decline so it was an ideal time for Sopwith to buy the premises. At the start he only had seven employees. Sopwith officially registered Sopwith Aviation as a company in 1913.
Sopwith Aviation made fighters and bombers for the Royal Flying Corps in World War One, like the famous Sopwith Pup and Sopwith Camel, and later for the RAF during the inter-war years and during World War Two. The Hawker Hurricane was developed in the Sopwith offices and built in Kingston upon Thames, Canbury Park Road near Kingston Railway Station.
If you look at the former Sopwith factory’s location on a map it seems a strange place to locate an aircraft production facility. It was in the middle of a town and nowhere near an airfield. Sopwith had foreseen that Float Planes were going to become important over the next decade and he needed a stretch of straight water to launch his designs. The River Thames just north of Kingston bridge was ideal. Sopwith got in trouble from the River Thames Conservancy group and the local police as he ‘forgot’ to ask permission to use the river to launch his planes. He used to wheel his float planes down to the river very early in the morning when there were very few people around to avoid being caught. Sopwith purchased a
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The office building still remains but it has been turned into flats. All that remains of its historic past are small Hawker Hurricane propellers built into the wrought iron railings. This was where the first plans for the Hawker Siddeley Harrier jump-jet were drawn up. The famous The Hurricane and The Harrier jump jet were constructed and developed at Hawker’s larger plant near the junction of Lower Ham Road with the Richmond Road on the outskirts of Kingston. From there, in the mid-1960’s Hawker's designer John Fozzard was put in charge of the development of the Harrier GR.1 After a long period of development the first Hawker Siddeley Harrier jump-jet flew on 31st August 1966. In 1977 Hawker Siddeley Ltd was nationalized and became part of British Aerospace (BAE) group. The ‘Hawker Siddeley Harrier’ then became the ‘BAE Harrier’. ■
AUGUST 2022 HISTORIC AIRCRAFT EUROPE 31
