Sopwith Snipe Herbert Smith, the chief designer of the Sopwith Company, began to design a fighter intended to be the replacement for Sopwith's most famous aeroplane, the successful Sopwith Camel. The resultant design, called Snipe by Sopwith, was in its initial form a single-bay biplane, slightly smaller than the Camel, and intended to be powered by similar engines. The pilot sat higher than in the Camel while the centre-section of the upper wing was uncovered, giving a better view from the cockpit. Armament was to be two Vickers machine guns. In the absence of an official order, Sopwith began construction of two
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,