Thomas Sopwith

Sopwith was born in Kensington, London, on 18 January 1888. He was the eighth child and only son of Thomas Sopwith (a civil engineer and managing director of the Spanish Lead Mines Company in Linares, Jaén, Spain) and his wife, Lydia Gertrude Messiter. He was a grandson of mining engineer Thomas Sopwith. He was educated at Cottesmore School in Hove and at Seafield Park engineering college in Hill Head.

On 30 July 1898, when he was ten years old and on a family holiday at the Isle of Lismore near Oban in Scotland, a gun lying across young Thomas's knee went off, killing his father. This accident haunted Sopwith for the rest of his life.

Sopwith was interested in motor cycles, and he took part in the 100-mile Tricar trial in 1904, where he was one of four medal winners. He also tried ballooning, his first ascent being in C.S. Rolls' balloon in June 1906. Together with Phil Paddon, he bought his own balloon from Short Brothers. For a while, he was in business with Phil Paddon selling automobiles as Paddon & Sopwith on Albemarle Street in Piccadilly, London.

In his youth, he was an expert ice skater and played in goal during the Princes Ice Hockey Club's 1908 match with C.P.P. Paris and during the 1909–10 season. He was also a member of the Great Britain national ice hockey team that won the gold medal at the first European Championships in 1910.

Sopwith became interested in flying after seeing John Moisant flying the first cross-Channel passenger flight. His first flight was with Gustave Blondeau in a Farman at Brooklands. He soon taught himself to fly on a Howard Wright Avis monoplane and took to the air on his own for the first time on 22 October 1910. He crashed after travelling about 300 yards (275 m), but soon improved, and on 22 November was awarded Royal Aero Club Aviation Certificate No. 31, flying a Howard Wright 1910 Biplane.

On 18 December 1910, Sopwith won the £4000 Baron de Forest Prize for the longest flight from England to the Continent in a British-built aeroplane, flying 169 miles (272 km) in 3 hours 40 minutes. He used the winnings to set up the Sopwith School of Flying at Brooklands.

On 28 June 1911, as the RMS Olympic was leaving New York City on her eastbound maiden voyage, Sopwith flew up to the Olympic, intending to drop a package of last minute supplies destined for passenger Washington Atlee Burpee. However, the package narrowly missed the deck, falling into the Hudson River.

In June 1912, Sopwith, along with Fred Sigrist and others, set up the Sopwith Aviation Company, initially at Brooklands. On 24 October 1912 using a Wright Model B completely rebuilt by Sopwith and fitted with an ABC 40 hp engine, Harry Hawker took the British Michelin Endurance prize with a flight of 8h 23m.

Sopwith Aviation got its first military aircraft order in November 1912, and in December moved to larger premises in Canbury Park Road, Kingston upon Thames. The site of the factory is now a private gated housing estate. A small section of the original building still exists at the junction of Elm Crescent and Canbury Park Road; white painted bay windows can be seen extending from the building to allow as much light as possible to enter the large room in which Sopwith made blueprints for his aircraft designs.

The company produced more than 18,000 World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5747 of the Sopwith Camel single-seat fighter. Sopwith was awarded the CBE in 1918.

Bankrupted after the war by punitive anti-profiteering taxes and a failed venture into motorcycle manufacturing, he re-entered the aviation business in 1920 with a new firm named after his chief engineer and test pilot, Harry Hawker. Sopwith became chairman of the new firm, Hawker Aircraft.

He became a Knight Bachelor in 1953. After the nationalisation in 1977 of the aviation interests of what was by then Hawker Siddeley, he continued to work as a consultant to the company until 1980.

In 1979, Sopwith was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. He was a member of the Air Squadron flying club.

Sopwith married Beatrice Hore-Ruthven (1871–1930) in 1914, but they had no children. Beatrice was the daughter of Walter Hore-Ruthven, who was created Baron Ruthven of Gowrie in 1919. During the period 1914 to 1920 he lived in Cobham, Surrey, where a Blue Plaque marks his residence.

After Beatrice's death in 1930, he married Phyllis Brodie Gordon (1892–1978) in 1932. They had one son, Thomas Edward Brodie Sopwith, who had success in car racing.

Sopwith's house in Mayfair at No. 46 Green Street, where he lived from 1934 until 1940, has a blue plaque. In 1940, he moved to Warfield Hall in Berkshire, which he had acquired the previous year.

Sopwith's 100th birthday was marked by a flypast of military aircraft over his home, Compton Manor in King's Somborne, Hampshire. He died in Hampshire on 27 January 1989, nine days after his 101st birthday. His grave and that of his second wife (Phyllis Brodie) are in the churchyard of All Saints Church, Little Somborne, near Winchester.