Place Name
The Sopwith Aviation Company, manufactured aeroplanes mainly for the British Royal Naval Air Service, Royal Flying Corps, and later the Royal Air Force in the First World War, most famously the Sopwith Camel between 1913 and 1920, which became one of the best known fighter aircraft with 5,490 built. The Camel, said to be so-named as there was a slight hump ahead of the cockpit, helped to re-establish the Allied aerial superiority that lasted well into 1918, seeing action both on the offensive and defensive fronts. The company was set up in June 1912 by Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, a wealthy sportsman interested in aviation, yachting and motor-racing. Following their first military aircraft sale in November 1912, Sopwith moved to the company’s factory premises which opened that December in a recently closed roller skating rink in Canbury Park Road near Kingston Railway Station. Towards the end of the war, Sopwith took out a lease on National Aircraft Factory No.2, constructed in 26 weeks during the winter of 1917, a mile to the north of the Canbury works in Ham. The company were able to greatly increase production of Snipe, Dolphin and Salamander fighter planes as a result. At the beginning of the war the company had 200 employees; this had reached 6,000 employees by the Armistice. However, post war the company had failed to capitalise on its position and its aircraft were obsolete. It entered voluntary liquidation after a move to build motorcycles failed. Until the 1940s this was farmland and development started at the end of the Second World War. This road and those that it encircles were named after the aviators and their aircraft, in a nod to Heston Aerodrome, which was operational between 1929 and 1947. Heston Air Park was conceived by fellow pilots and aircraft co-owners Nigel Norman and Alan Muntz in 1928, and it was constructed by their new company, Airwork Ltd.
