AV Roe & Company (AVRO)

Edwin Alliott Verdon-Roe was already known in the early part of the 20th century for his aeroplane experiments at Brooklands and Lea Marshes, where he finally achieved his first successful controlled flight in July 1909. A little under six months later, on 1st January 1910, Alliott (as he was known), along with his brother Humphrey, established one of the world’s first aircraft manufacturers, AV Roe & Company, on the basement floor of the Everards Elastic Webbing Company at Brownsfield Mill in Manchester. At the same time, a shed was rented at Brooklands Flying Grounds to which Alliott moved his flyable machines, which he then offered for sale at £450 each. Design and development work continued at a pace in Manchester and by the end of 1912 the business had proved itself to be such a viable concern that on 11th January 1913 it became a full limited company.

The first 'AVRO' type to be built in quantity was the Avro E (or Avro 500). 18 were manufactured and it saw service with No.3, No.4 and No.5 Squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in 1913. The Avro 504 appeared in September 1913 as a development of the Avro 500. At its official trials at Farnborough it gave such an impressive demonstration that in November of the same year the government placed orders for the aircraft. With orders increasing it was clear that larger premises were needed, and on 17th March 1913 all of the materials and the 75 Avro personnel were moved from Brownsfield Mill to Clifton Street, Miles Platting in Manchester.

In 1914, having totally outgrown the Clifton Street site, Avro 504s were being produced in an extension to the Mather & Platt Works at Newton Heath and although some adjacent land had already been acquired, the full development of the site was not completed until 1919. The Avro 504 kept the company busy throughout the First World War and beyond. Built primarily as a pilot trainer, it was instant success with the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service with nearly 9,000 aircraft being built. By November 1914, the aircraft had assumed many other roles and the RNAS used Avro 504s to carry out a hugely successful raid over the Zeppelin Works on the shores of Lake Constance, on the German-Swiss-Austrian border.

With production escalating and general lack of flying facilities close to the Manchester factories, AV Roe selected The Hamble, on the South Coast near Portsmouth, as a suitable site for the creation of a new ‘Garden City’ and a factory where both aeroplanes and flying boats could be built with employees living locally in 450 newly-built houses. The project faltered however when wartime shortages halted the development of the 300-acre site although the attraction of the South Coast was to prove instrumental in the future for Roe himself.

During 1928, Alliott Verdon-Roe sold his stake in the company and with the proceeds purchased the SE Saunders Company to create Saunders-Roe Limited (SARO), based at the Hamble. With the sale of his shares to J. D. Siddeley, AV Roe & Company became part of the Armstrong Siddeley Development Company, a sister company of Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. In 1935, J. D. Siddeley merged his interests with Hawker and ownership of the 'Avro' brand passed on once more, this time to Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Limited. although it continued to trade under the Avro banner.

With tensions growing in Europe, Avro opened a new 750,000 sq ft factory at Greengate, Middleton, now better known as Chadderton, in 1938. A year later, an Experimental Department was established at the newly opened RAF Ringway (now Manchester Airport) with the addition of yet another factory at Yeadon Aerodrome (now Leeds Bradford Airport) which went on to produce over 5,500 Avro aircraft (Avro Anson, Avro Lancaster, Avro York and Avro Lincoln).

Just as in the First World War, Avro played a significant role in providing aircraft for the war effort in the new global conflict, and under its Chief Designer Roy Chadwick, it manufactured over 7,500 Avro Lancaster, Manchester and York aircraft for RAF Bomber Command, of which over 3,000 Avro Lancaster bombers were produced at Chadderton alone, each being then taken by road to Woodford for final assembly. 

After the war, Chadwick turned his attention to civil aircraft and designed the Avro Tudor which was to be Britain’s first pressurised airliner. However, with the development of the new jet airliners by de Havilland in the UK and by Boeing in the US, very few Tudors were built. Sadly, Roy Chadwick died on 23rd August 1947, ironically in an accident involving a prototype of his own design (the Avro Tudor 2). His death was a major blow to the company although rather poignantly it was not before he had overseen the design of what was probably one of Avro's most famous aircraft - the Avro Vulcan.

Avro was finally absorbed into Hawker Siddeley Aviation Limited in July 1962, when the Avro name ceased to be used – but some thirty years later it was to have one last flourish when British Aerospace re-branded its 146 regional jet design and adopted the name Avro RJ (Regional Jet) in 1994. While that was the last time an aircraft formally used the Avro name, 'Avro' remains synonymous with aircraft design and manufacturing to this day.