The Société Latham was a French aeronautical construction company which built seaplane

Seaplane

A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft...

s for the French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

. It is best known for the prototype of the Latham 47

Latham 47

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 which disappeared in 1928 with Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....

 onboard during a rescue mission to the North Pole

North Pole

The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...

 in search of Umberto Nobile

Umberto Nobile

Umberto Nobile was an Italian aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. Nobile was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships during the Golden Age of Aviation between the two World Wars...

 (a memorial to which was set up in Caudebec-en-Caux

Caudebec-en-Caux

Caudebec-en-Caux is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:Caudebec-en-Caux is located W.N.W. of Rouen, on the right bank of the River Seine. The tidal bore in the estuary of the Seine which is known as the mascaret in French, but...

 in 1931, by the sculptor Robert Delandre

Robert Delandre

Robert Delandre was a French sculptor. He was a student of Alexandre Falguière and Denys Puech.-Works:* Le Vent et la feuille...

 and the architect Léon Rey).

The company was set up in 1916 at Caudebec-en-Caux

Caudebec-en-Caux

Caudebec-en-Caux is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:Caudebec-en-Caux is located W.N.W. of Rouen, on the right bank of the River Seine. The tidal bore in the estuary of the Seine which is known as the mascaret in French, but...

, on the banks of the Seine

Seine

The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...

 by Jean Latham, cousin of Hubert Latham

Hubert Latham

Arthur Charles Hubert Latham was a French aviation pioneer. He was the first person to attempt to cross the English Channel in an aeroplane...

. In August 1933 it launched the Blériot 5190

Blériot 5190

|-References:*...

 seaplane, christened Santos-Dumont, equipped with Hispano-Suiza

Hispano-Suiza

Hispano-Suiza was a Spanish automotive and engineering firm, best known for its luxury cars and aviation engines in the pre-World War II period of the twentieth century. In 1923, its French subsidiary became a semi-autonomous partnership with the parent company and is now part of the French SAFRAN...

 motors with a total horsepower of 650 ch. The company's work was based in Caudebec-en-Caux until a 1951 restructuring of the Latham, Bréguet

Société Anonyme des Ateliers d'Aviation Louis Breguet

The Société des Ateliers d'Aviation Louis Bréguet also known as Breguet Aviation was a former French aircraft manufacturer. The company was set up in 1911 by aviation pioneer Louis Charles Breguet....

 and Potez

Henry Potez

Henry Potez was a French aircraft industrialist.He studied in the French aeronautics school Supaéro. With Marcel Dassault, he was the inventor of the Potez-Bloch propeller which after 1917, have been set on most of all Allied planes of World War I.In 1919, he founded his own company Aviations...

 companies, in which it was renamed REVIMA (Révision de Matériel Aéronautique) and merged into the Chargeurs Réunis group.