Thomas Sopwith Flying at Brooklands. 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 Kingston upon Thames. The company produced more than 18,000 World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5747 of the Sopwith Camel single-seat
Thomas Sopwith racing. Sopwith's house in Mayfair, 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, aged 101. His grave and that of his second wife Phyllis Brodie can be found in the grounds of the 11th-century All Saints Church at Little Somborne near Winchester. Thomas Sopwith Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith,