Thanks to Mike Pryce for discovering an article in a 1960 'Flight' magazine by Wg Cdr Norman Macmillan OBE, MC, AFC, who uncovered the story of Herbert Smith by actually interviewing him.
    Smith took a Diploma in Engineering at the Bradford Technical College then spent three years in a workshop and one in a drawing office before joining the Bristol Aeroplane Company as a draughtsman. He moved to the Sopwith Aviation Company as a draughtsman in March 1914 and stayed there until the liquidation in October 1920.
    When he first joined Sopwiths they had no designer. The Chief Draughtsman, Mr Ashfield, had been a school teacher and carried out instructions from Sopwith, Sigrist and Hawker. These three were largely responsible for the 1 1/2 Strutter, the Pup and the Camel, the last two being derivatives of their pre-war Tabloid. Smith believed that nearly all the pre-1914 aircraft were produced from full scale chalk drawings on the shop floor, a 'lofting' procedure he had seen in operation.