The three brothers who played a huge role in aviation history
Older readers might recall the rather romantic sight of flying boats moored on the River Medway at Rochester.
The flying machines were made by Short Brothers, a major employer before and during the Second World War.
But few people today are aware how important the pioneering firm was to the aircraft industry and the key role Kent played in our country’s aviation history.
There were three Short brothers, Oswald (1883-1969), Horace (1872-1917) and Eustace (1875-1932). Oswald and Eustace started in business in 1897, manufacturing hot-air balloons. These were made initially at Hove in Sussex, where Horace had a workshop developing an acoustic amplifier he had invented.
When Horace left to work elsewhere on the development of the steam turbine engine, Eustace and Oswald moved their business briefly to railway arches at Battersea.
They secured contracts to supply the Army with balloons for observation and everything was going swimmingly until the American Wright brothers took to the air. Oswald saw a demonstration of their new flying machine in France.
He immediately recognised both the danger – and the opportunity – telling Eustace: “This is the finish of ballooning. We must begin building aeroplanes at once, and we can’t do that without Horace!”
Horace was persuaded and in 1908 they registered their partnership under the name Short Brothers.
One of the first orders for an aircraft came from aviation enthusiast Charles Rolls, later to become the Sir Charles Rolls of the Rolls-Royce partnership.
The first Short No1 biplane went on show in March 1909.
The brothers then moved the business to a new workshop at Leysdown on Sheppey and began work on six aircraft at once – so becoming the first aircraft manufacturing company in the world to undertake volume production.
As business expanded, the company moved again, this time to nearby Eastchurch, where they built the ShortDunne 5, designed by John W. Dunne, the first tailless aircraft to fly.
Another first came in 1911, when Shorts produced the first successful twin-engine aircraft, the Triple Twin. They also began a series of naval floating planes, with the Short S26.
In 1913, the company opened a base at Borstal near Rochester known as the Seaplane Works where it could launch directly on to the Medway.
The First World War brought an enormous urgency to aircraft development and production and on August 15, 1915, during the Battle of Gallipoli, a Short S184 was the first aircraft to attack a ship with a torpedo.
The S184 was Shorts’ most successful plane before the Second World War, with more than 900 made.
Between the wars, the company focused on flying boats, considered the best means of making long-distance flights when there was no certainty of a ready airfield at the end. It was in this period that the machines would most often be seen on the Medway.
In 1927, Sir Alan Cobham used a Short Singapore to survey Africa from the air, covering some 23,000 miles.
A development of the Singapore, known as the Calcutta, became the staple machine of Imperial Airways (later BOAC), flying routes across the Empire.
In 1933 the company had opened a new factory at Rochester Airport to make landplanes and the Eastchurch premises closed the year after.
In 1937, the company was commissioned by the government to build the Sunderland flying boat, which became a vital weapon in the battle against Nazi U-boats. The Germans called it the Fliegendes Stachelschwein – the Flying Porcupine.
Meanwhile, in 1936, with its eye on the approaching war, the Air Ministry established a new factory at Belfast to be run by a company called Short and Harland, owned in equal measure by Short Bros and Harland and Wolff. The factory was soon making HandleyPage Hereford bombers.
Shorts made a substantial contribution to the war effort, with the Stirling – the RAF’s first four-engined bomber – perhaps the best known.
As a result, the Luftwaffe bombed the Rochester factory and production was shifted increasingly to Belfast, which then in turn became a German target.
In 1948, the company quit Rochester for good and moved all operations to Belfast.
It was the end of a long connection to Kent but not the end of the company. It went on to to make English Electric Canberras, missiles including the Sea Cat and the Javelin and, more recently, drones.