Roy Chadwick
Roy Chadwick,
CBE, (
April 30 1893 –
August 23 1947) was an aircraft designer for
Avro. Born at Marsh Hall Farm, Farnworth near
Widnes, son of the mechanical engineer Charles Chadwick, he was the Chief Designer for the
Avro Company and was responsible for practically all of their aeroplane designs. He is famous in particular for designing the
Avro Lancaster bomber, and preliminary designs of the
Avro Vulcan V bomber. He also converted the Lancaster into the much-used
Shackleton.
He went to St Clements Church School in
Urmston, then studied at night school from 1907 to 1914 at the
Manchester Municipal College of Technology whilst working as a draughtsman at
British Westinghouse in Trafford Park,
Manchester. From September 1911, he began work at Avro at Brownsfield Mill when he was 18. When starting to design entire planes, he was based at
Hamble, near
Southampton. In 1928, he moved back to the Avro factory in
Woodford, Manchester, used today by
BAE Systems. In 1939, production of Avro aircraft was moved to a new factory at Greengate, near
Chadderton, today owned by BAE Systems. After the war, he designed Britain's first pressurised airliner, the
Avro Tudor, based around the Lancaster-derivative
Avro Lincoln, though few were built. His final involvement with Avro was overseeing the initial designs of the Vulcan from 1946. He died on
August 23 1947 during an aborted take-off of the prototype Avro Tudor 2
G-AGSU from Woodford airfield, in the vicinity of Shirfold Farm. The accident was due to an error in an overnight servicing in which the
aileron cables were inadvertently crossed.
He was honoured in 1943 with the CBE, after the
Dam Busters raid. His daughters, Margaret Dove and Rosemary Lapham, are his closest living relatives.
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Biography and Avro history.*
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