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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nI was intrigued to read about a substantial donation to the Spire Restoration Fund in 1949\/50. \u00a3200 was received from Hugh Oswald Short who remembered with fondness his time in the choir at St. Bartholomew\u2019s and recalled how along with his sister they collected money for a new font following the devastating fire in 1895.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, who was Mr Short?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hugh Oswald was the son of Samuel (from Northumberland) and Emma Robinson (of Ashover). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the 1891 census the family were living at 56 High Street, Whittington. Samuel was aged 48 and employed as a steam engine engineer (according to a note on Ancestry he was an apprentice to Robert Stephenson). Also listed was Eustace (16), Ethel (10) and Hugh (8). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time of the 1901 census Eustace and Hugh were living at a laboratory in Hove. It is reported that Eustace had purchased, repaired and learnt to fly a coal gas filled balloon \u2018The Queen of the West\u2019. By now they had moved to premises under Battersea Bridge next to the gas works. They marketed their balloons at show grounds in particular and it is said gave a demonstration at the Chesterfield Flower Show among others. They then went on to make balloons for The Aero Club and won a contract to supply the Indian Government. <\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nThe works at Battersea<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This adventure led to their love affair with all things aeronautic. In 1908 they visited an exhibition of flying machines in Paris where their enthusiasm was further driven. To realise their ambitions they realised they would need the help of their brother Horace who was managing a silver mine in Mexico. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Horace had suffered meningitis as a child which led to an enlarged brain and \u2018misshaped\u2019 head. He was said to be extremely clever often being a head of teachers particularly in mathematics and Latin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Horace agreed to join them and quickly with the help of his brothers grasped the idea of aeronautics. In 1908 the Short Brothers company was formed and Horace had built his first aircraft in 1909, the Short No.1 also winning a contract to build Wright Flyers for the Wright Brothers in America.This first aircraft (purchased by Frank McClean) though was not a success with the car engine they used proving too heavy. They did try a lighter engine but this proved no better so they abandoned that model and concentrated on building aircraft for the Wright Brothers. <\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nA Short No.1 Biplane<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With an order for 6 aircraft there was a need to move to bigger premises, so a site was found on the Isle of Sheppey next to the Royal Aero Club, setting up Shellbeach airfield.\u00a0This enabled the Short brothers to open the world\u2019s first production line for aeroplanes thus becoming the world\u2019s first aircraft manufacturer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Renowned aviator Charles Rolls bought one of the Wright Flyers but sadly on 12 July 1910, at the age of 32, Rolls was killed in an air crash when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off during a flying display. He was the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident with a powered aircraft, and the eleventh person internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1910 they built the Short-Dunne 5 the world\u2019s first tailless plane to fly and the following year they achieved another first with the Short Type S.39 the world\u2019s first twin-engine plane. That same year they started work on what was to become a long series of float planes, the Short Type S.26, for the Royal Naval Air Service. Following on from this design was the Short Type S.27 which in 1912 became the first aircraft ever to be launched off a moving ship.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nA pair of F.5 Felixstowe Flying Boats built by the Shorts<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 1915 it was recognised that they needed to be nearer water so they moved to Rochester, Kent near the river Medway. With the First World War underway, Shorts were producing a large number of aircraft for the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) mainly the Short Type S.184. Over 900 would be supplied to the Navy\u2019s air arm. It was a Type S.184 that during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 launched the world\u2019s first ever airborne torpedo attack on a ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1916 the military contracted Short to build airships. Short found a site at Cardington near Bedford and built a huge hangar for the construction of these large flying machines.\u00a0\u00a0They also built a housing estate, Shortstown which still exists today.\u00a0\u00a0The business was nationalised in 1919. The company was renamed Short Brothers (Rochester and Bedford) Ltd.\u00a0Horace sadly died in 1917 and his Oswald became the chief designer for the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He developed construction methods using aluminium alloys such as\u00a0 Duralumin, and in 1920 he patented\u00a0monocoque and\u00a0stressed skin aircraft construction techniques. In 1924, he applied the technology to flying boat designs to replace wooden structures that were prone to deterioration. His technology was licensed in the United States, France, and Japan. In the 1920s, Short Brothers manufactured thousands of lightweight bodies for omnibuses, until Oswald’s monocoque and stressed skin methods became more widely acceptable to aircraft customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Short concentrated on building flying boats including in 1924 the Singapore range. The following year Shorts built one of their most iconic flying boats the Calcutta. Based upon the earlier Singapore design the Calcutta was purchased by Imperial Airways as a 15-seater passenger airliner and first entered service in 1928. In 1932 Eustace passed away leaving only Oswald remaining from the three brothers. <\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nA Short Stirling Heavy Bomber<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With business booming, in 1936 Shorts entered into a partnership with shipbuilders Harland and Wolff to form a new company to open an aircraft factory in Belfast. The new company was known as Short and Harland and their first contracts were to build under licence a number of Handley Page Hereford bombers and 50 Bristol Bombay aircraft.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the outbreak of the Second World War both the Rochester and the Belfast factories would be working flat out producing the Short Sunderland and the RAF\u2019s first four-engine heavy bomber, the Short Stirling. 2,371 of these large bombers would be produced along with 749 Sunderlands at the two main factories plus several satellite units around the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1943 the company was nationalised by the UK government. At the time Oswald was in poor health, and he resigned his posts but accepted the honorary title of life president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the 1950s and 60\u2019s Short\u2019s design office was involved with a number of research aircraft such as the Short SC.1 VTOL aircraft, the Short SB.4 Sherpa wing trials aircraft and the radical SB.5 that could be configured to alter the sweep back of its wing and have the tailplane fitted atop the fin or in the more normal fuselage mounted position. This was a trials aircraft for the design of the new supersonic Lightning jet fighter to be built by English Electric. In 1954 the Bristol Aeroplane company took a15.25 per cent share in Short Brothers and Harland Ltd and as a consequence 15 Bristol Britannia\u2019s for the RAF were built by Shorts at Belfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On his retirement Oswald had settled at\u00a0Linchmere. He was recognised in the aerospace industry; he was made an honorary fellow of the RAeS (Royal Aeronautical Society), president of the Guild of Aviation Artists, a fellow of the\u00a0Royal Astronomical Society. He was also freeman of the City of London, and honorary freeman of the City of Rochester.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 4 December 1969, Oswald Short died at home at Linchmere, Sussex. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Shorts company continued to design aircraft until 1988. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1998, Short was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame<\/a> at the San Diego Air & Space Museum<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was intrigued to read about a substantial donation to the Spire Restoration Fund in 1949\/50. \u00a3200 was received from Hugh Oswald Short who remembered with fondness his time in the choir at St. Bartholomew\u2019s and recalled how along with his sister they collected money for a new font following the devastating fire in 1895. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2073","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2080,"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2073\/revisions\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stbartholomew.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}