Cunliffe-Owen

History

In 1929 Sir Hugo Cunliffe-Owen, 1st Baronet (16 August 1870 – 14 December 1947), Chairman of British American Tobacco Ltd, first entered the world of aviation as one of the financial backers of aeronautical consultants The Aircraft Investment Corporation Ltd. Obviously, this was purely a matter of finance, with little or no interest in the aviation aspects, but in 1936 he announced his intention of entering the New York to Paris air race, scheduled for August 1937. His chosen aircraft was to be the Scottish Aircraft and Engineering Company’s ‘Clyde Clipper', a development of the American Burnelli UB-14. It was proposed to hire the crew from Olley Air Service Ltd, another company in whom Cunliffe-Owen had a large financial interest. However, this was not to be. The race itself was cancelled in May 1937, and the Scottish Aircraft and Engineering Co, in whom Sir Hugo had also heavily invested, went into Receivership on 26 July 26 1937, with what appears to have been a total loss to shareholders.

Cunliffe-Owen was still interested in the Burnelli aircraft, and on 9 September 1937 a private company was registered under the name of BAO Ltd. The initial share capital was £100 and the objects stated as ‘manufacturers of and dealers in aircraft and components ‘. No further details by way of directors were given.

On 11 May 1938 BAO Ltd, now of Hangar No.2a, Southampton Airport, Eastleigh and described as ‘aircraft manufacturers and dealers’, had increased its capital by £49,900. Directors were listed as Sir Hugo Cunliffe-Owen; George C Drury (director of E.B. Eddy & Co Ltd); Rex M. Hoyes (director of Marwell Shipping Co Ltd); and John W S Comber (director of Olley Air Service Ltd). It was also proposed to change the name of the company to Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft Ltd, a measure that came into effect on May 24th. By this time, Sir Hugo had arranged a private deal with Vincent Burnelli for the purchase of the British manufacturing rights, and acquired the business and assets of defunct Scottish Aircraft & Engineering Co.

Meantime, Sir Hugo Cunliffe-Owen was also expanding his airline interests. In June 1938, British and Foreign Aviation Ltd. was formed, to acquire "not less than 90 per cent" of the share capital of Olley Air Service Ltd. and Air Commerce Ltd. Its authorised capital was £250,000, with Sir Hugo holding a controlling interest.

Work now began on the Cunliffe-Owen OA-I – a much redesigned and re-engined version of the UB-14. Construction of the all-metal, stressed-skin aircraft was undertaken in the company’s original hangar. Meanwhile, in May 1938, work commenced on a large factory on the south side of the airport for production of additional aircraft. Costing £150,000, the site was close to Supermarine’s flight-test hangar. Initial plans showed the eventual need for 2,000 workers. The prototype OA-1 was flown for the first time on 12 January 1939. Press coverage of the event referred to it as the British Burnelli, not the OA-1. It must be stressed that at no time was there a company called British Burnelli. The OA-1’s first flight just preceded the official opening of the new factory, which was formerly opened by the Mayor of Southampton on 2 February 1939, and at the time of opening, was the largest single-span factory building in Europe.

The OA-1 undertook trials at Martlesham Heath in the summer of 1939, but its performance did not come up to expectations. Further trials were undertaken in September for the Air Ministry, which was looking for possible new transport aircraft. However, critics, and importantly the RAE and A&AEE at Farnborough, were rightly concerned that the aircraft was deficient in many ways, and potentially dangerous. These flaws could undoubtedly have been corrected, but with to the outbreak of war, no further development of the OA-1 was undertaken, and it was eventually acquired by the Air Ministry, which passed it on to the Free French Air Force.

Cunliffe-Owen had also formed an association with Lockheed Aircraft of California, and in September 1938 assembled the first of a number of Lockheed 14s for British Airways. These airliners arrived by sea, with two Lockheed 12As assembled in the spring of 1939.

On the outbreak of WWII, Cunliffe-Owen was immediately involved in the assembly of a variety of aircraft, initially American ones shipped to Southampton. The individual aircraft arrived more or less complete, but requiring to be adapted with British instruments, and changes in avionics and armaments to a greater or lesser degree to the RAF and RN requirements.

Following from the company’s earlier connection with Lockheed, The first American aircraft to be assembled at Eastleigh were Lockheed Hudsons, also assembled at a subsidiary factory in Scotland, RAF Macmerry, outside Edinburgh. Other American aircraft were assembled and readied for the RAF, and by 1942, for the USAAC/USAAF. The many different aircraft types included Curtiss Model 75 Hawks, Curtiss P40 variants (Warhawk, Tomahawk and Kittihawk), Douglas A-20 Bostons and Havocs, Martin B-26 Marauders, Bell P-39 Airacobras fighter, Vought Chesapeakes and Lockheed P-38 Lightnings.

In 1941, Cunliffe-Owen completed an airstrip at nearby Marwell Park, close to the village of Fair Oak, on land owned by the company’s Managing Director, Mr R. Hayes. The extensive grounds provided an ideal location for a satellite factory and accompanying airfield, had a good road access, was close to the main factory, and importantly was in a rural enough location to allow for good camouflage of the site. At least twenty small hangars were provided to house the aircraft. The grass runway usually had enough length for most aircraft to land and take off from, but when the site became the main site for fuselage modifications to incorporate the new H2S radar in Coastal Command Halifax and Liberator bombers, the tree line and some hedges adjacent to the road had to be cleared to give enough room for these large aircraft. By 1944, the end of the war was potentially in sight, and Cunliffe-Owen decided to hand over the Marwell site to AST.

From the end of 1942, Cunliffe-Owen converted 118 Spitfire VBs into fixed-wing Seafire IBs, a contract that was shared with AST at Hamble. With space still available, the company was awarded a contract in January 1943 on behalf of Supermarine to build large numbers of Seafires, the first of a series of contracts that lasted into 1946. All were built at Marwell until its transfer to AST.

During the war, the company's design officer tendered projects to meet Air Ministry specifications: an un-numbered ground attack specification in 1942, specification O.5/43 and specification S.6/43 for a shore-based torpedo bomber, all of which were unsuccessful. With an eye to the future, a four-engined transatlantic airliner was schemed.

After the war, given the low use of the factory during this period, starting in 1946 Cunliffe-Owen sublet portions of the plant to the Cierva Autogiro Company, undertaking production of Cierva's designs. At the same time, Cunliffe-Owen produced their first, and only, indigenous design, the Concordia, a 12-seat feederliner.

In a bid to support the British commercial aviation industry in the early post-war period, the government authorised a pair of Concordias for newly created state-owned corporation British European Airways. An option was taken by the Nawab of Bhopal in India, intending to use a Concordia as his private transport, while a Belgian company, COGEA, put itself forward as a sales agent for Belgium and its Congo colony.

Production commenced on the two prototypes and an initial production batch of six, but only the first two aircraft flew, as on 18 November 1947 the company announced that it was abandoning the project. The reason was the poor worldwide economic conditions at the time, a lack of capital within the company, and little interest following a European sales tour. Four weeks later, Sir Hugo died of a heart attack.

Sir Hugo’s son, Dudley Cunliffe-Owen, succeeded him, but the end of the Concordia marked the end of the company. Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft Ltd. had insufficient modification work from military contracts coming in to survive the suspension of work on their airliner. Already in mid-January 1948, the Aircraft section of their 'Modern 'Factory and Office Block', amounting to 260,000 sq. ft., plus a large variety of tooling and manufacturing equipment from the Concordia production, was offered for sale by auction in lots between 27 January 1948 (tooling and equipment) and March 1948 (the factory itself) by Henry Butcher and Company. The completed and un-completed aircraft were put up for sale by tender at the end of May 1948, and all remaining aircraft were scrapped. Cunliffe-Owen was placed into receivership on 19 July 1948.

The factory was subsequently used briefly by the Cierva Autogiro Company and then in 1949 was bought by Briggs Motor Bodies, who supplied Ford of Britain with bodies for their motor vehicles. In 1953 Ford acquired Briggs, and hence gained control of the 630,000 sq. ft. factory, renamed the Ford Southampton plant.

Company References

1. Wessex Aviation Industry, Mike Phipp (Amberley Publishing, 2009)
2. British Commercial Aircraft 1920 - 1940, Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume (GMS Enterprises, 2003)
3. https://www.solentsky.org/post/secret-files-the-cunliffe-owen-story
4. https://www.key.aero/article/crowded-out-cunliffe-owen-concordia

Project Data