During the First World War, many
of the Coventry motor car firms turned to aeroplanes and engines, but the
industry did not assume importance until 1920, when Sir WG
Armstrong-Whitworth's Aircraft Company was formed by a merger of the
Newcastle firm with Siddeley Deasey of Coventry. In 1923 they moved from
London Road to Whitley, where the Siskin trainer and fighter planes were
made, followed by civil aircraft from 1926 onwards.
The Armstrong Siddeley Development
Company which controlled Armstrong Whitworth, became part of the Hawker
Siddeley Aircraft Company in 1935 and a new factory at Baginton was opened
the following year, to produce the famous Whitley plane. Alvis entered the
field of aeroengine manufacture at this time and were still in production
in 1963.
The Second World War saw the chief motor
works once more producing armaments, and Daimler, Rover, Austin and Rootes
worked together to manufacture aeroengines with Armstrong Whitworth
engaged on the production of Lancasters and Stirlings. The company entered
the jet age with contracts for Meteors in 1949, and by the mid-1950's had
designed the Argosy, a successful freight-carrying aircraft built to
military specifications.
Gloster Aircraft merged with Armstrong
Whitworth in 1961, and work was transferred from Blackburn to Coventry,
where designs for supersonic aircraft were on the drawing board. However,
more changes in group organisation took place and with the cancellation of
the AW 681 project, it was decided to close the Coventry works in 1965.