Remembering Hawker Siddeley: The Rise (And Fall) of Britain’s Aviation Powerhouse

Whilst a giant from the day it was founded until the day it ceased trading, Hawker Siddeley were one of Britain’s preeminent aircraft manufacturers, arguably being the largest in Britain during the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Yet, for most of its existence, Hawker Siddeley didn’t produce aircraft under its own name – instead letting its subsidiaries produce their own aircraft under their own name. It was only in the mid-1960’s when Hawker Siddeley began making its own aircraft!

Pre-Hawker Siddeley: Hawker Aircraft

In June 1912, Thomas Sopwith, a wealthy British sportsman with an interest in aviation, established the Sopwith Aviation Company with the help of Fred Sigrist, an aircraft engineer and Sopwith’s close friend.

Over time, Sopwith grew into one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in Britain, coming to employ over 4500 people and producing some of Britain’s most important fighter aircraft like the Sopwith Pup and Camel during WWI.

Among those 4,500 employees was an Australian mechanic called Harry Hawker.

Having joined the company not long after it was founded, Hawker soon convinced Thomas Sopwith himself to teach him how to fly. Agreeing, Hawker soon showed an aptitude for flying, with Sopwith soon promoting Hawker to the role of chief test pilot.

Booming during the war, the postwar years were tough on Sopwith financially, and they had to let most of their employees go before collapsing in 1920.

Immediately after the Sopwith Aviation Company collapsed, Harry Hawker, Fred Sigrist and Thomas Sopwith got together to form the H. G. Hawker Engineering, later simply known as Hawker Aircraft Limited.

Founded in late 1920, Hawker became famous for producing some of the best biplane fighters used by the RAF and Royal Navy, including the Woodcock (1923), Tomtit (1928), Nimrod (1930), Fury (1931) and Hart (1934).

Pre-Hawker Siddeley: Armstrong Siddeley

In 1902, motor industry veteran John Davenport Siddeley, better known as J. D. Siddeley, established Siddeley Autocar Company, to produce Peugeot designs in the UK under license, as well as his own designs.

Within three years, Siddeley Autocar had become a major threat to Wolseley Motors – then the largest name in British car manufacturing – so much so, that they bought his company in 1905 and became their sales manager.

Not content with his life at Wolseley, Siddeley resigned and joined Deasy Motor Company, where he served as founder and CEO Henry Hugh Peter Deasy’s right-hand-man.

When Deasy retired in 1912 due to ill-health, Siddeley took over as head of the company and renamed it Deasy-Siddeley.

During WWI, Deasy-Siddeley made a fortune producing ambulances, and got involved producing aircraft engines and airframes with help from the Royal Aircraft Factory (later the Royal Aircraft Establishment).

In 1920, Siddeley negotiated a deal with Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd. to acquire Deasy-Siddeley. Merged with their Armstrong Siddeley Motors Ltd subsidiary to form Armstrong Siddeley, J. D. Siddeley was put in charge.

In 1928, Armstrong Whitworth merged its heavy manufacturing interests with Vickers to form Vickers-Armstrong, with J. D. Siddeley bringing Armstrong Siddeley and Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft under his control.

Foundation And Early Years

In 1934, Hawker Aircraft approached J. D. Siddeley about acquiring Armstrong Siddeley and Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. At the age of 70, J. D. Siddeley was more than willing to sell his businesses. For the right price of course.

After months of negotiations, with Siddeley placing several special conditions on the deal (such as Hawker keeping the Siddeley name) and attempting to get the best price possible for his business, the two sides came to an agreement.

For £1 million (around £73 million in today’s money) and other “benefits” as Siddeley put it, Hawker Aircraft officially acquired Siddeley’s two businesses, merging them together to form Hawker Siddeley.

Still flush with cash, the newly formed Hawker Siddeley acquired A. V. Roe & Company (better known as Avro) to go along with Hawker Aircraft’s pre-existing Gloster Aircraft Company subsidiary, which they’d acquired in 1934.

Unlike other companies, Hawker Siddeley itself didn’t produce any aircraft. Instead, it acted more as a holding company, with each of its subsidiaries – Hawker, Gloster, Avro etc. – producing their own designs under their own names.

All part of the same group of companies, Hawker Siddeley would give each subsidiary the money it needed to fund its various projects, with the remainder (eg. the profit) being given to the owners as a dividend.

Sometimes, engineers from sister companies would even help one another with design and development of their aircraft, understanding that their help would be repaid later, if the need ever arose.

WWII

In September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland after Britain and France warned him that doing that would be seen as a declaration of war. Keeping their promise, Britain and France both declared war on Germany.

Although the war was slow to begin with, Britain began spending millions of pounds on acquiring new aircraft. As one of Britain’s largest aircraft manufacturers, the RAF and Royal Navy acquired a lot of their aircraft from Hawker Siddeley owned companies.

During the war, the Hawker subsidiary produced aircraft like the Hurricane, Tempest and Typhoon, all of which served with distinction during the war. Although the Spitfire usually gets all the credit, the Hurricane shot down 55% of the German aircraft during the Battle of Britain.

Likewise, the company’s Avro subsidiary spent the war producing patrol aircraft, troop transporters and bombers like the Shackleton, Lancastrian and even the famed Lancaster, the latter of which has been immortalized due to its participation in the Dambusters Raid.

Only two Lancasters remain airworthy as of the time of writing: one owned by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope, Ontario, whilst the other owned by the RAF as a part of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, based at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire.

At the outbreak of WWII, the company’s Gloster Aircraft subsidiary had no workable military designs of their own, so spent much of the war building Hawker and Avro aircraft under license instead. Mostly, Hawker Hurricanes and Typhoons.

Whilst most of the Gloster employees were building aircraft designed by other Hawker Siddeley owned companies, Gloster engineers were sat designing their first military design of the war.

This design eventually became the Gloster Meteor and first flew on March 5 1943 before entering service on July 27 1944. Interestingly, this makes the Gloster Meteor the only operational jet aircraft used by the Allies during the war!

First Foreign Acquisition

During WWII, Canada’s Victory Aircraft (a company owned by the Canadian government) had acquired licenses from the company’s Avro subsidiary to produce some of their designs, including the Anson, Lancaster and York.

At the war’s end, in 1945, the Canadian government sold Victory Aircraft to Hawker Siddeley, in effect privatizing it.

Under Hawker Siddeley ownership, Victory Aircraft was officially renamed A. V. Roe Canada (using the trading name Avro Canada) and became Avro’s Canadian subsidiary.

Immediately following the acquisition, Avro Canada mainly became a refurbishment, maintenance and servicing company for the RCAF’s WWII-era fleet due to most wartime contracts being cancelled by the Canadian government after the war.

With aircraft refurbishment maintenance and servicing providing steady revenue, Avro Canada began working on a few of their own designs, building Canada’s first (and only) natively designed, mass-produced fighter jet, the Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck.

At the same time, Avro Canada began developing the C102 Jetliner, which was intended to be the world’s first jet airliner.

However, its first flight occurred on August 10 1949, a mere 13 days after the de Havilland Comet’s first flight, with the Comet earning the distinction of being the world’s first jet airliner. Eventually the C102 project was cancelled due to a lack of interest too.

During the 1950’s, Avro Canada continued to produce new military aircraft designs such as the top-secret Avrocar VTOL experimental fighter for the USAF and US Army.

Aside from the Avrocar, Avro Canada also produced the failed CF-103 (intended to replace the CF-100) and the CF-105 Arrow (a delta wing supersonic interceptor), both of which were ambitious designs that never entered service.

Indeed, Avro Canada spent billions developing both aircraft. Without any money from selling them, the company’s finances had become a mess, and the company was finally shut down in 1962. The company’s assets were then merged into the newly formed Hawker Siddeley Canada.

Postwar And Expansion

In 1948, Hawker Siddeley Aircraft changed its name to the Hawker Siddeley Group to signify that they weren’t just an aircraft manufacturer anymore, they were expanding into other aviation-related industries too.

After WWII, UK military expenditure had been slowly decreasing (as it had been with other countries). Following the 1957 Suez Crisis, military expenditure decreased by a whopping 10%, the first double-digit spending cut since 1948.

An unintended side effect of this was that the British government offered aircraft manufacturers, like the ones Hawker Siddeley owned, fewer contracts overall with those contracts that were offered being for fewer aircraft in total.

This precipitated the need for British aircraft manufacturers to consolidate into much larger companies.

Already a big company with several different brands, Hawker Siddeley began acquiring other aircraft manufacturers so it could maintain its position as Britain’s largest aircraft manufacturer.

To that end, the company acquired Bristol Aero Engines (the engine division of the Bristol Aeroplane Co.) and merged it with Armstrong Siddeley to create Bristol Siddeley on April 1 1959.

That same year, they acquired Folland Aircraft from Henry Folland (ironically a former employee of Hawker Siddeley’s Gloster Aircraft who’d left because of the Hawker takeover).

Following this, they acquired a struggling de Havilland Aircraft from an aging Geoffrey de Havilland. Just needing some financial backing, Hawker Siddeley’s acquisition allowed de Havilland to remain operational.

In 1960, the company acquired Blackburn Aircraft, splitting its aircraft manufacturing and engine production operations in two.

Their aircraft manufacturing division being absorbed into Hawker Siddeley’s other aircraft manufacturing brands and its engine production operations into Bristol Siddeley.

Missile Business

By absorbing its many subsidiaries, Hawker Siddeley had, inadvertently, entered the missile and rocketry business.

Inheriting the Firestreak air-to-air missile from de Havilland, the company continued to produce it until 1988, where it served in British, Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian service. That year, the RAF retired it along with their last English Electric Lightnings.

De Havilland had also begun work on another more powerful missile before they were absorbed. This design eventually became the Red Top, and was entered into service in 1964. This too, was retired in 1988.

In 1968, the company began work on the Taildog heat-seeking (infrared targeting) air-to-air missile. Although only experimental, this was later developed into the BAE SRAAM.

Developed in conjunction with Mantra, the company also developed the Martel anti-radiation missile, which first flew in 1972.

Inherited from Armstrong Whitworth, the company became the producers of the Seaslug surface-to-air missile used by the Royal Navy, and its replacement, the Sea Dart, which they developed on their own and was first entered into service in 1973.

Beyond missiles, the company also inherited the Blue Steel conventional nuke from Avro and the Blue Streak ICBM from de Havilland, which had their first flights in 1963 and 1964 respectively.

Aside from its many missiles and rockets, Hawker Siddeley took a page out of Hughes Aircraft’s book and got involved in the satellite building industry, producing the Miranda, which was launched in 1974.

The company also tried to create its own rocket, the Europa, from the aforementioned Blue Streak, although this project was later cancelled.

Involvement With Airbus

Through their acquisition of de Havilland, Hawker Siddeley had inadvertently entered the commercial airliner market through their acquisition of the DH.106 Comet and DH.121 (Trident) lines of jet airliners.

Although the Comet was the first jet airliner, it wasn’t very successful. However, the DH.121 trijet, later known as the Hawker Siddeley Trident, was quite successful and the company were keen to maintain their market share in the jet airliner business.

Sensing that airlines were going to want bigger airliners, the company began evaluating designs for a 200-seat airliner. Unbeknownst to them, British Aircraft Corporation, Nord Aviation (France) and Breguet Aviation were all doing the same.

Eventually realizing this, and prompted by their respective governments to do so, the companies soon joined together to produce this airliner (to better compete with American-made designs).

Official negotiations to produce a European-made, short-haul widebody, twinjet airliner began during the 1965 Paris Airshow. To reflect this, the design of the aircraft – mostly done by Hawker Siddeley engineers – was designated as the HBN 100.

By the time it actually came to build the aircraft, however, Hawker Siddeley was the only company left standing.

Nord Aviation had been folded into Aerospatiale, who were continuing with the project, and Breguet Aviation had been bought by Dassault and dropped out of the project.

Joining them was West German aircraft manufacturer, Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), who agreed to take Breguet’s workload.

Although it took over five years, MBB, Aerospatiale and Hawker Siddeley came together to create Airbus Industrie SE (the precursor to today’s Airbus) on December 18 1970. The newly formed Airbus then got to work building what’s now called the A300.

For its efforts, Hawker Siddeley were given a 20% stake in the company (as France and Germany put up more money to begin with, whilst other countries joined the project too, this 20% stake has been bought and sold several times by Hawker Siddeley’s successor companies).

Rebranding Efforts

Having spent the late 1950’s and early 1960’s acquiring several new companies and the brands that go with them, Hawker Siddeley had continued to let all of its subsidiaries act as independent companies, often competing against one another for contracts.

Whilst a good idea on paper – they’ll have to design the best aircraft possible to not only beat their competitors, but also their sister companies – it wasn’t a great idea on paper, as it split the company’s focus and minimized how effective it could be.

Realizing this, Hawker Siddeley officially absorbed all the activities of its various subsidiaries into Hawker Siddeley Aircraft, dropping the names of each of its subsidiaries, eg. de Havilland, Folland, Gloster etc.

Those aircraft currently in mass-production retained their original designation, eg. the de Havilland Comet had been mass-produced under de Havilland’s ownership. So whilst production continued under Hawker Siddeley, its name never reflected that.

However, when newer variants of the aircraft were introduced, the Hawker Siddeley name was introduced. For example, Blackburn had produced its famed Buccaneer fighter before it was merged into Hawker Siddeley.

Early variants continued to carry the “Blackburn” name, whilst younger variants were officially known as the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer, however, very few people at the time (and indeed, today) use the Hawker Siddeley designation.

Likewise, those aircraft then under development at Hawker Siddeley’s subsidiaries were given new designations too.

For example, the Hawker P.1127 then-under development at Hawker Aircraft, became the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel (later developed into the Hawker Siddeley Harrier) whilst the de Havilland DH.121 became the Hawker Siddeley HS.121 Trident.

Nationalization & Becoming BAe

On April 5 1976, then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson stepped down as Leader of the Labour Party (and thus Prime Minister), with then-Foreign Secretary James Callaghan winning the leadership election to become both the leader of his party and Prime Minister.

Although promised by his predecessor in their manifesto when they were elected to government in February 1974, it took until Callaghan’s premiership to get the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 passed by Parliament.

The primary goal of this act was to nationalize Britain’s aviation and shipbuilding industries, and merge them into two companies: British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders.

Done for many reasons, the British government’s primary reason was that if all of Britain’s aircraft manufacturers became one company, it would have a better chance of contending with American giants Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas.

Once the act was passed, Hawker Siddeley Aircraft and Dynamics were merged into British Aerospace (sometimes simply known by its initials BAe) alongside its competitors Scottish Aviation and British Aircraft Corporation (BAC).

With this, all the Hawker Siddeley branded aircraft still in production were rebranded by British Aerospace.

For example, the Hawker Siddeley (125) Domini became the British Aerospace (BAe) 125, whilst the Hawker Siddeley Hawk became the British Aerospace Hawk and the Hawker Siddeley 146 became the BAe 146 (also known as the Avro RJ).

Eventually privatized in 1980, under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, British Aerospace merged with Marconi Electronic Systems to form today’s BAE Systems.

Although very different from its predecessor, BAE owned Hawker Siddeley’s stake in Airbus until it divested itself in 2006.

Other Businesses

Although explicitly an aircraft manufacturer, Hawker Siddeley expanded far beyond just producing aircraft, acquiring or starting a series of other manufacturing-related businesses so it could call itself Britain’s #1 manufacturing conglomerate.

In 1957, the company acquired the Brush Group, who owned companies like Brush Traction and English Electrical Machines. This acquisition allowed Hawker Siddeley to get their foot in the door of the railway locomotive industry.

You see, Brush Traction were (and still are!) Britain’s leading manufacturer of railway locomotives. English Electrical Machines, on the other hand, were (and still are to a certain extent) Britain’s leading manufacturer of locomotive engines.

Beyond giving the company a large market share in the overall railway locomotive industry, the company’s early success through various projects encouraged their Canadian division to do the same in Canada.

From the early 1970’s until the late 1980’s, HS Canada’s Canadian Car and Foundry division began building Canadian Light Rail Vehicles (CLRVs) for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).

In 1959, the company established a nuclear power subsidiary called Hawker Siddeley Nuclear Power Company. That year, they built a low-power 10 kW JASON reactor at their site in Langley, Buckinghamshire (now in Berkley).

Completed that year, the reactor was operated by the company until 1962 where it was shut down and transported to the nearby Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, where it was operational until 1996 and fully dismantled in 1999.

Hawker Siddeley Today

In 1966, Bristol Siddeley was merged into Rolls Royce, becoming their jet engine division, which continues to this day, having produced engines for jets like the A330, 747, Concorde, Harrier and V-22 among many other civil and military jets!

In 1973, Hawker Siddeley acquired South Wales Switchgear and merged it with their Brush Switchgear (another part of the aforementioned Brush Group) to form Hawker Siddeley Switchgear (often abbreviated to just HSS).

Despite having been sold to FKI, the company continues to use the HSS name to this very day!

HSS’s Australian subsidiary, HSS Australia, who similarly continue to use the Hawker Siddeley name despite not being owned by them.

Another former subsidiary, Hawker Siddeley Power Transformers similarly used the name long after the company who gave it its name ceased to exist. HS Power Transformers survived into the 21st century before going bankrupt in 2003 and ceasing to exist itself.

In June 1993, British Aerospace sold its corporate jet division – creatively called BAe Corporate Jets Ltd. – to Raytheon for $390 million. In doing this, British Aerospace sold off its famed BAe 125 line of corporate jets, formerly built by Hawker Siddeley.

A year later, Raytheon merged their corporate jet division (formerly BAe Corporate Jets) with the Beech Aircraft Corporation, who they’d acquired that same year. Representing this, Raytheon changed the name of this company to Hawker Beechcraft.

Reviving the old Hawker name, Hawker Beechcraft continued to produce the BAe 125 line of business jets from British Aerospace, as well as Beechcraft’s other private aircraft like the Beechcraft King Air and Premier I aircraft lines among others.

The latest variant of the BAe 125, the BAe 125-800 was also renamed the Hawker 800 to bring up a sense of nostalgia for the old Hawker (Siddeley) Aircraft company.

A strategic move, this was done by Hawker Beechcraft as many of the business leaders who’d end up acquiring the jet grew up with Hawker (Siddeley) aircraft protecting them, be it from the Axis or the Soviets, or maybe even both!

In 2006, Raytheon sold Hawker Beechcraft to a consortium led by Goldman Sachs and Onex Corporation, who continued production of the BAe 125/Hawker 800 line until the company went bankrupt in February 2013.

Legacy

Despite having been defunct for over 40 years, the legacy of Hawker Siddeley still lives on, with you still being incredibly visible today!

Britain

Although many in Britain can’t tell you much about the company, nearly everyone can tell you at least one aircraft produced by the company: the Harrier.

Produced by the company and its successors beginning from 1967 until well into the 1970’s, it became famous in Britain for its extensive use during the Falklands War, with Harriers being used to beat back the Argentine forces.

It’s also a source of national pride too. Exported to India, Thailand and Spain, the Harrier served with distinction there too. It was also exported to the US in the 1970’s, as the AV-8A, becoming the first foreign-made aircraft in USMC service since WWII!

Beyond its aviation-related impact, Hawker Siddeley’s nationalization (and subsequent privatization) remain powerful tools in British politics.

Whenever political parties or politicians talk about nationalizing entire industries in the UK to make them more competitive internationally, the example of Hawker Siddeley/BAe is often brought up.

Whilst it was still trading, Hawker Siddeley, whilst it only had a minor market share, did stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Boeing, which BAe – even as a monopoly – could never do, as it had very few incentives to cut costs and produce better aircraft for the RAF and Royal Navy.

After all, they’d buy them regardless.

Aviation Industry

In its heyday, Hawker Siddeley were a titan. While American-made aircraft often sold well in the Americas, when it came to other continents, it was often British-made aircraft that took the cake.

And who was the largest of them? That’s right, Hawker Siddeley!

In fact, it was so good that during the 1960’s and 1970’s, there were several countries on each inhabited continent whose militaries used Hawker Siddeley-made aircraft.

Not to mention the airlines that were using Hawker Siddeley-made airliners.

Although it may not sound like much, this forced aircraft manufacturers like Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed to produce aircraft at a lower cost internationally, both in terms of acquisition costs and costs to operate.

And they actually did it. By the 1990’s, superior (and cheaper) American-made jets, coupled with Britain’s diminishing industrial capacity, allowed American-made aircraft to usurp Britain’s position as the rest of the world’s major aircraft exporter.

Even today, whilst Hawker Siddeley’s successor firms, namely BAE Systems (and its associated companies), still try to put up a fight internationally, American jets are usually #1.

Do you remember Hawker Siddeley? What was their best aircraft? Tell me in the comments!

Featured image courtesy of Steve Lynes via Flickr.