Bill King tells us about important but less well known activities at
Richmond Road…
For a quarter of a century, between 1959 and 1984,
the main
administration block at Richmond Road performed a key role in the
design, development and manufacture of military and civil aircraft
spread nationwide. Kingston became the Head Office for Hawker Siddeley
Aviation (1959-1977) with the top management team and the support
staffs resident on site. The HSA Directors were responsible for the
aircraft activities on the following sites replacing the old aircraft
companies:-
Kingston and Dunsfold (Hawker) - Hunter, Harrier, Hawk
Hamble (Folland) - Gnat and subcontract
Bitteswell (Armstrong Whitworth) - repair and overhaul
Manchester (Avro) - Vulcan, Shackleton, HS 748, Andover, Nimrod, Victor
Tanker, ATP
Brough (Blackburn) - Buccaneer, Phantom (sister design authority)
Hatfield and Chester (de Havilland) - Comet, Trident, HS 125, HS 146,
Airbus.
Following nationalisation in 1977 and on the
formation of BAe it was decided that the Headquarters of the Aircraft
Group would be in the offices in Richmond Road and new sites came into
the fold: -
Prestwick (Scottish Aviation) - Jetstream 31
Weybridge and Filton (BAC Civil Aircraft Division) - BAC 111, Concorde,
VC 10 Tanker
Warton (BAC Military Aircraft Division) - Canberra, Strike Master,
Tornado, Jaguar, Typhoon
Many of new senior directors at Aircraft Group would
come from the BAC Military Aircraft Division. However Warton, where the
bulk of the Aircraft Group’s turnover was concentrated, always operated
with a wide degree of autonomy. With the privatisation of BAe in 1983
the new company board decided to dissolve the old group structure and
concentrate power in a new BAe headquarters building in the Strand. By
1984 the old group headquarters offices became empty and were
demolished in 1990 with the rest of the Kingston site.
Over its 25 years of existence as a headquarters the
Kingston site provided office accommodation for some of the most famous
names in the country’s aviation history including Tommy Sopwith, Roy
Dobson, John Lidbury, Sidney Camm, Bob Lickley, Freddie Page, Colin
Chandler, Ivan Yates, Eric Rubython, John Stamper, Bill Bedford,
‘Birdie’ Wilson, Harry Broadhurst and Peter Fletcher. Each Director had
his own small team of experts to advise on critical matters and help
develop and oversee company policies and procedures.
Central services like legal, intellectual property, IT, publicity
and government contracting were all based at Kingston and over the
years there were growing numbers of accountants and sales and marketing
professional, plus a central team of engineering, manufacturing and
design specialists. Always kept small in number, headquarters staff
provided multifunction expert teams at a time when the British aircraft
industry was at its most turbulent, but still producing aircraft in
significant numbers.