George Holt Thomas
Encyclopedia
Airco
The Aircraft Manufacturing Company Limited was established in 1912 by George Holt Thomas at The Hyde in Hendon, north London, England.-Geoffrey de Havilland:...
or Airco.
Son and grandson of successful artists he initially followed his father into The Graphic
The Graphic
The Graphic was a British weekly illustrated newspaper, first published on 4 December 1869 by William Luson Thomas's company Illustrated Newspapers Limited....
and Daily Graphic newspaper business in 1890 later making his own name and fortune founding his own newspapers The Bystander and Empire Illustrated magazine. Something of a shrewd visionary he turned to aircraft in 1906.
Background
George Holt Thomas was the seventh son of William Luson Thomas (1830-1890)William Luson Thomas
William Luson Thomas was an English wood engraver and the founder of various British newspapers.-Biography:He worked as an engraver in Paris and also as an assistant to the well-known engraver William James Linton....
and his wife Annie, daughter of John Wilson Carmichael
John Wilson Carmichael
John Wilson Carmichael, a marine painter, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne about 1800. From constantly seeing so much shipping,he obtained at an early age great accuracy of drawing in this line of art, and among his earliest paintings produced a very fine picture, 'The Heroic Exploit of Admiral...
. Born at Hampton House, Stockwell, south London, educated privately and at King’s College School, London he left Queen’s College Oxford in 1890 after two years and without taking a degree. In 1894 he married Gertrude daughter of architect Thomas Oliver
Thomas Oliver (architect)
Thomas Oliver , was a classical architect active in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.He was one of a number of talented local architects who worked with Richard Grainger on the development of Newcastle, but his work tends to be overshadowed by that of John Dobson who has been given a great deal of the...
of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, there were no children of the marriage.
Newspapers
After he left university in 1890 he joined his father’s newspaper business as a director then became its general manager and later founded The Bystander with its comic strip character "Old Bill" and Empire Illustrated so making his own name and fortune.Aviation
During 1906 he turned his attention to aviation recognizing its extraordinary potential. He became associated with the Farman brothers Richard or DickRichard Farman
Richard 'Dick' Farman was a French aeronautical engineer, aviator, and one of the Farman brothers who were pioneers of early aviation. He also known as Dick Farman, or Richard Farman.-biography:...
, Henri and Maurice Farman
Maurice Farman
Maurice Alain Farman was a French Grand Prix motor racing champion, an aviator, and an aircraft manufacturer and designer.-Biography:...
born in Paris of English parents involved with newspapers. Through the Farmans he engaged a French pilot, Louis Paulhan, to compete for the £10,000 prize Holt Thomas’s friend Lord Northcliffe
Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe
Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe rose from childhood poverty to become a powerful British newspaper and publishing magnate, famed for buying stolid, unprofitable newspapers and transforming them to make them lively and entertaining for the mass market.His company...
of the Daily Mail offered in 1906 for a successful flight from London to Manchester, a distance far longer than anyone had then flown. In April 1910 Paulhan won the prize.
Aircraft Manufacturing Company, Airco
Beginning the enterprise in 1911 Holt Thomas formed Aircraft Manufacturing Company LimitedAirco
The Aircraft Manufacturing Company Limited was established in 1912 by George Holt Thomas at The Hyde in Hendon, north London, England.-Geoffrey de Havilland:...
in 1912 to build French Farman aeroplanes
Farman MF.7
|-See also:-External links:* Contemporary technical description of the MF.7 with photographs and drawings....
and obtained licences to build French Gnome and Le Rhone engines. The Farman biplanes were used as trainers by the Royal Flying Corps
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
.
de Havilland
Learning Geoffrey de HavillandGeoffrey de Havilland
Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, OM, CBE, AFC, RDI, FRAeS, was a British aviation pioneer and aircraft engineer...
then at the royal aircraft factory in Farnborough might be available he invited de Havilland to join Airco as designer. His Airco designs pre-fixed with his intials D.H. were around 30% of all trainers, fighters and bombers used by Britain and the United States during the First World War.
Civil aviation
By November 1918 and the armistice Holt Thomas was able to advertise that his was the largest aircraft company in the world. His companies built aeroplanes and their engines and propellors in large numbers and also airships and flying boats. He had the latest metal-working machinery, a laboratory for materials testing and a wind tunnel. Between 7,000 and 8,000 people were employed at Hendon. His companies turned out a new aircraft every 45 minutes. Hendon became a 'white elephant' which he endeavoured to sell to car manufacturers.Aircraft Transport & Travel Limited
With an eye to the end of the war Holt Thomas formed Aircraft Transport & Travel LimitedAircraft Transport and Travel
Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited was a British airline formed during the First World War, a subsidiary of Airco. It was the first airline to operate a regular international flight .-History:...
, sometimes erroneously called Aircraft Travel & Transport, in 1916. He was concerned that aviation had not been sufficiently seriously regarded before 1914 and the same should not be allowed to happen to civil aviation which would develop once peace was achieved. He painted word pictures of trunk routes through Britain and Ireland with links throughout Europe even to the United States and New Zealand through India and Australia.
When the armistice came Holt Thomas turned his considerable abilities to keeping his aviation business together and brought in Sefton Brancker
Sefton Brancker
Air Vice-Marshal Sir William Sefton Brancker KCB AFC , commonly known as Sir Sefton Brancker, was a pioneer in British civil and military aviation.-Early life:...
, Francis Festing and Mervyn O’Gorman
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
The Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was a United Kingdom agency founded on April 30, 1909 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research...
. Aircraft Transport & Travel began the world’s first scheduled air service on 25 August 1919.
Holt Thomas’s hopes for civil aviation were not at once realized. His Airco group of companies seemed near failure when he sold them into the BSA group
Birmingham Small Arms Company
This article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....
's Daimler Hire Limited
Daimler Hire
Daimler Hire Limited a service begun in 1897, provided a luxury chauffeur-driven Daimler Limousine-hire-service from Knightsbridge in London. It was a wholly owned operation and later a subsidiary of The Daimler Motor Company Limited....
in February 1920. Finding the Airco group’s financial circumstances much worse than they had understood BSA immediately placed most of Holt Thomas's business in the hands of a liquidator and BSA's holding company suffered very serious losses being obliged to pay no dividend for the four subequent years. Holt Thomas was on the BSA board only a matter of days. Holt Thomas remained a tireless advocate of civil aviation.
Air Transport & Travel continued another eight months under the management of Frank Searle
Frank Searle (businessman)
Frank Searle CBE, DSO, MIME was a British transport entrepreneur, a locomotive engineer who moved from steam to omnibuses, the motor industry and airlines.-Personal:...
of Daimler Hire Limited within the BSA group. A T&T (Air Express) used the newest DH.18 eight-passenger aircraft introduced in April 1920 until November 1920 before it too was placed in liquidation.
Holt Thomas was able to assist Geoffrey de Havilland to purchase those assets he needed to form his own aircraft manufacturing business
De Havilland
The de Havilland Aircraft Company was a British aviation manufacturer founded in 1920 when Airco, of which Geoffrey de Havilland had been chief designer, was sold to BSA by the owner George Holt Thomas. De Havilland then set up a company under his name in September of that year at Stag Lane...
.
Publications
Aerial Transport in 1920 and The Future of British Industry and Trade Unionism 1925 and many letters to the Editor of The Times.Retirement and his early death
The Royal Commission on Awards to InventorsRoyal Commission on Awards to Inventors
A Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors is a periodic Royal Commission of the United Kingdom used to hear patent disputes.On October 6, 1919 a Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors was convened to hear 11 claims for the invention of the tank....
whose inventions had been utilized during the war awarded him in 1925 a sum far more than any other industrialist received.
At his country home North Dean House, Hughenden, Buckinghamshire he took up the breeding of Friesian dairy cattle.
Holt Thomas died at Cimiez near Nice, France on 1 January 1929 in his 60th year following surgery in the hospital there.
"His kindness, charming and restrained manner, and quiet enthusiasm will always be remembered. No one who met him in those early days can visualize him as a business man but as an aviation enthusiast, keen on our progress from a national point of view. . . . This pioneer was a great Englishman and his loss will be regretted by many."
Colonel G W Dawes, DSO, AFC The TImes