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 Thomas Sopwith Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS (18 January 1888 – 27 January 1989) was an English aviation pioneer, business executive and yachtsman. Sopwith was born in Kensington, London on 18 January 1888. He was the eighth child and only son of Thomas Sopwith (a civil engineer and managing director of the Spanish Lead Mines Company, Linares, Jaén, Spain) and his wife Lydia Gertrude née Messiter. He was a grandson of mining engineer Thomas Sopwith. He was educated at Cottesmore School in Hove and at Seafield Park engineering college in Hill Head. When he was ten years