§ LORD BRABAZON OF TARA, who had given Notice that he would call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the dismissal from the Bristol Aeroplane Company of Sir Roy Fedden, their chief engineer, and move for Papers, said: My Lords, I have put this Motion down because I feel most unhappy at the situation that has arisen in that a great engineer, Sir Roy Fedden, has parted—been dismissed, in fact—from the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Their association has been so long and so successful that it is indeed a tragedy at the present moment that such a thing has occurred. Sir Roy Fedden represents the inspirational and inventive side of engine development, and I want to preface any remarks that I make by asking your Lordships to bear in mind this particular point with regard to aircraft and engines—namely, that quantity is not of such paramount importance. Quality is even more important. As we look back over the years of this war, we recognize that the fact that we are sitting here to-day is due not to our having had a lot of aeroplanes, but to the fact that we had the best in the world. If it had not been for the Hurricane and the Spitfire, we should have been defeated in this war by now. Therefore I ask your Lordships to remember the importance of the technical side of aeroplane construction.
§ The Bristol Company has dismissed Sir Roy Fedden. There is a dispute, and it is only right that we should analyse, in part, the two sides and two parties to this dispute. The Bristol Company was founded by Sir George White, with great imagination, some years ago. Sir George White had two sisters. It was the next generation who formed the board of that company and form it to-day. Never 71 since the beginning of the company has anybody but relations of that family been allowed upon the board. To-day there are two brothers and two cousins, and I propose therefore to designate the directorate of that company as the cousins. None of them are engineers. Whether they are very capable business men or not, I do not know, but I did refer to Flight in 1935 to see what happened when they changed from a private company into a public company. I see that they offered 360,000 10s. shares to a stockbroker issuing house for 37s. 6d. each, and that the latter sold them to the public for 52s. 6d., thereby making £270,000. Whether that was philanthropy or lack of business ability I am not qualified to decide.
§ On the personnel side of this company there were two men who were really responsible for its success. One was Captain Barnwell, who designed aeroplanes and who was eventually killed, as also was his son, flying. The other was Roy Fedden. Roy Fedden has produced the most successful radial air-cooled engines in the world. The list is an impressive one. It starts with the Jupiter, then the Mercury, the Perseus, the Pegasus, the Taurus, the Hercules, and now one of the biggest engines in the world is coming through. Sir Roy Fedden is responsible for more than half the power plant of the Royal Air Force to-day. All these engines have been copied all over the world. To show the sort of engineer he is, he was awarded the Guggenheim medal in America, and Dr. Lewis, head of the Advisory Committee on Aeronautics in America, said "I regard Sir Roy Fedden as the most outstanding engineer on air-cooled engines in the world." That is the type of man we are talking about who has been dismissed from the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Sir Roy was very much responsible for getting Lord Rothermere to take up that Miss Britain I, a purely private speculative venture, which was the basis of those Blenheim machines which, although out of date to-day, were of such vast use at the beginning of the war. He was also responsible for producing the Rotol Company. He saw clearly, although few others at that time saw it, that the variable pitch propeller was bound to come. It was advancing in 72 America and should be encouraged here, and he persuaded the Bristol Company and the Rolls-Royce Company to come together and form the Rotol Company. And if it had not been for the Rotol Company I do not know where we should have been to-day, because it has been a constant struggle to keep the supply of propellers up to the supply of engines.
§ The Government asked that Fedden should be put on the board as long ago as 1931, but the cousins were not going to break their personal relationships. In 1940 the Ministry of Aircraft Production asked Sir Roy Fedden to come and help the Government, but the cousins replied, and very rightly, that he could not be spared because his services were wanted urgently and continually for the development and the running of his engines. Now, at the beginning of this year, Sir Roy Fedden, for all his great services to the country, was made a Knight, and it really is from that time that the trouble starts. In arriving at the question of what position he should hold in the company, Sir Roy Fedden has never said that he wanted to butt into the purely productive side; all he wanted, and all he was entitled to have, was complete control of the experimental and development and designing plant. The cousins offered him what was called the post of technical controller, but there was this point, that part of his organization was to be controlled by the productions manager; in other words he was going to be responsible for research and development and the designing of new things, but the control of his staff and the designs office were to be in somebody else's hands. He said that was an impossible position, and he could not accept it. They could not agree and consequently he was dismissed. We stand to-day, the Bristol Company, rather like Hamlet Limited without the Prince of Denmark.
§ That, my Lords, you will say is a domestic quarrel, and will ask why should I waste your time in bringing this point out. Well, I want to try to tell your Lordships that I think there is a national aspect behind it. As I said earlier in my remarks, the culmination of this man's work has resulted in his producing the most powerful aeroplane engine in the world. It has passed its type tests. It has got to go of course from the type test to become standard equipment in the ordinary squadron of the Air Force, but 73 there is a long way between a type test and an engine becoming a satisfactory engine in the hands of squadrons. At a time when we are all mechanics you will appreciate how much is required to be done before one can get a new engine into a satisfactory state. This engine is of the utmost importance to our Air Force. It wants its father to nurse and to look after it, and at the very time when that man is essential to that engine he is dismissed from the company. I do not believe there is anybody who will not view the situation with alarm and horror, and I think we are giving needless hostages to fate in what has happened in this regard.
§ There will be running through your Lordships thoughts this question: What should the Minister have done? Well, the present Minister succeeded me and I frankly say to your Lordships that I could not have done more than the present Minister has done, or even as much. He has taken this question under his wing, he has spent countless hours with the directors, with the cousins, with Sir Roy Fedden, has had countless conferences and very nearly brought them together; then they parted again. Nobody could have striven more than he to get these people together. The only power that he actually has is to put a controller in charge of the company, but he could not do that because you could only do that if you could show that the production of the company required it. The production of the company is quite satisfactory and he could not do anything. I would like to point out to your Lordships that if Sir Roy Fedden had been an ordinary man he would have come under a particular standstill order; he could not have been given the sack unless There was an inquiry; but apparently when you are the chief engineer of a company you can be dismissed at a. moment's notice, whereas an ordinary fitter has a court of appeal. I must say I think it is an unwholesome thing that the board of a company, a family with no outsiders on the board, should refuse to allow the creators of their great business upon their board, should on their own, against the persuasion of everybody, including the Government and including the Minister put us into a position where we are going to be handicapped, I think deliberately, from a national point of view. It may be that the situation has now got to such a pitch that nothing can be done. I think it is 74 regrettable, knowing engine development as I do and the position of that engine to-day, that we have got to a state when, at the most critical time in the development of that great power plant, Sir Roy Fedden has been taken away from it.
LORD SEMPILLMy Lords, on a salt marsh within fifty miles of your Lordships' House history was made when, with but a handful of witnesses, a very courageous and far-sighted young man made the first power-driven flight in the United Kingdom on the 27th February, 1909. Other flights followed within the year, and the pilot qualified for the Royal Aero Club certificate No. 1, and later gained the £1,000 prize offered by a member of your Lordships' House for the first circular power-driven flight. That pilot, my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara, affectionately known to all his pilots, to my noble friend Lord Londonderry who was Air Minister, and others, as "Brab," has raised a Motion of the very greatest importance. I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is more than fitting that the leader in this art of air pilotage in the British Empire, and one of the first twelve men in the world to make a free and controlled mechanical flight, should have spoken as he has done about this sad case of Sir Roy Fedden in relation to the Bristol Aeroplane Company. I very fully support all that my noble friend has said about the Bristol Aeroplane Company. It is right that he should say it, and sad that one of the pioneer companies that followed the lead in the development of mechanical flight should have fallen so far from grace and behaved in so cavalier a fashion to one of the greatest geniuses in the design of aircraft engines that the world has ever seen.
There is much more that I would like to say on this matter, and I speak with feeling born of thirty years' experience in the practice and art of aeronautics, but I realize that the time of your Lordships' House is short. Having flown in every country in the world where aircraft engines are designed and built, I know at first hand how great the opinion is throughout the world of Sir Roy Fedden's skill in design. It is appreciated very widely. The bulk of the aircraft flying to-day, as my noble friend Lord Brabazon said, no matter from where they come, bear ample testimony to the genius of Fedden. Fedden-designed engines of 75 various types in aircraft built in this country, in Germany and in Italy, have held for a number of times the world's height record. To-day, this record is held by an aircraft fitted with an engine of which the most important components were designed by Sir Roy Fedden.
In the United States of America and in Great Britain, of all the aero engines built in the last twenty years, two-thirds have been air-cooled radials and Fedden is the acknowledged world leader in the design and development of this type. In the last twenty years engines totalling 75,000,000 horse power have been built, very largely in this country, but also abroad in the Occident and in the Orient and in the United States of America. This includes the engines built during this period in the shadow factories, but does not include the various types of air-cooled radial engines built abroad attributable in the main to the genius for design of Fedden, although not strictly termed Bristol engines. Your Lordships, I am sure, will find it hard to visualize the magnitude of the manufacturing effort that has been put into the building of these Bristol engines. Seventy-five million horse power is a very large figure, and what does it mean? If I may illustrate it in this way, it means that the horse power of the engines built in the last twenty years would be seven times greater than the total horse power available in His Majesty's ships in the summer of 1939, or expressed in another way, if London was to be enlarged twelve times, the horse power of the buses that would be required to serve so vast a city would be of the order of that mentioned, 75,000,000.
No man in our day has done so much for the development of aeronautics as has Sir Roy Fedden, and that this announcement should have been made by the Bristol Company when an important aircraft mission was landing on these shores from America was an extremely unfortunate thing. It is to be honed that something can be done to adjust these matters, and even if it is not possible for Sir Roy Fedden to return to the Bristol Company, which his genius has made a world force, as it undeniably is, then perhaps another company concerned with the question of design and development of these engines might be set up for that specific purpose. But this trouble, which 76 has been spoken about so very clearly by my noble friend Lord Brabazon, is a symptom of other troubles that are to be seen in the aircraft industry. I hope that something can be done to prevent repercussions of the same kind of difficulty—the difficulty in which people on the financial side make war against those on the technical side and, as in the case of Sir Roy Fedden, throw men out on the beach. Other companies substantially concerned with such troubles are the de Haviland Aircraft Company, Ltd., the Fairey Aviation Company, Ltd., D. Napier & Son, Ltd., and Short Bros. (Rochester and Bedford), Ltd. There is another, but as their case is sub judice, it cannot of course be mentioned by name.
§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD SHERWOOD)My Lords, the matter which has been raised by my noble friend Lord Brabazon is an important one, inasmuch as it deals with one of the most important parts of the defence of this country, the Royal Air Force. When the noble Lord who moved this Motion left the Ministry of Aircraft Production, my right honourable friend Colonel Llewellin, the present Minister, found that all was not right with the engine development that was going on in the Bristol Aeroplane Company. My noble friend who moved this Motion had been the Minister for some time, but when the present Minister came into office it was quite clear to him that matters had reached a stage of delay which made him bound to take an interest in a question of serious importance. In fact the Bristol Company and Sir Roy Fedden were only communicating through solicitors, and so it was clear that the Minister had to take action. Immediately this became clear to my right honourable friend Colonel Llewellin, he sent for Sir Roy Fedden and the other parties, and tried to get them together in order to find out what was the matter and arrive, if possible, at a satisfactory arrangement. All this time, as the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, has pointed out, engine development was suffering, and that was a matter of urgent national importance.
It was vital that something should be done. My right honourable friend, the Minister, called the parties together and managed on the 3rd September to get an arrangement to which all sides were 77 agreed. Later on, however—in fact, it was the next day, I think—Sir Roy Fedden felt that he could not agree to this arrangement, although he had agreed to it at first. That was a serious matter, and I mention it to your Lordships only because the Minister had done his part in calling together the disputants in this very big matter in order to get them to agree. Letters were exchanged which proved it—I will not weary your Lordships by reading them—yet afterwards Sir Roy Fedden felt that he could not go forward. I say nothing more on that, but I wished to make the point because the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, made this a personal attack on the family who run this business, as if they were the people who had sacked out of hand Sir Roy Fedden with no idea that there had been difficulties which other people had come in to solve, and thought they had solved, and then found a solution was not there. As the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, told your Lordships, there is a power which the Minister possesses in that he can appoint a controller, but of course it is only when a company is being run really inefficiently that the Minister would exercise that right. My right honourable friend would riot shrink from doing this if he felt it was really necessary, but there is no evidence at all of inefficiency on the part of the Bristol Company.
Their activities can be divided into four parts—aircraft design, aircraft production, aero engine design and development, and development of aero engine production. Aircraft design is quite satisfactory, and aircraft and engine production is good. The difficulties which have arisen were entirely confined to the aero engine design side which was in charge of Sir Roy Fedden. That is where the difficulties, with which the Minister was faced, came from. I agree with my noble friend Lord Brabazon, that Sir Roy Fedden's name is associated with some of the great engines of our time—he mentioned the Jupiter, the Pegasus, the Mercury, the Taurus and the Hercules. We all know what these engines have done and how much in that connexion we owe to Sir Roy Fedden. But there is no doubt that a state of affairs had arisen which was not furthering the development of the Bristol engine. That was clear to my right honourable friend, and he had to take a decision having re- 78 gard to the range of interests of the Bristol Company. My right honourable friend weighed carefully all the factors involved, and he came to the conclusion that the war effort would be best served if the connexion between Sir Roy Fedden and the company was brought to an end. Four times in his speech my noble friend Lord Brabazon said that Sir Roy Fedden was "dismissed" and once he said that he was "sacked." Those are strong words to use. I have told you what Sir Roy Fedden has done, what the feeling is in the company, and what the company has to do, but there are personal sides to this matter and the Minister came to the conclusion that it would be better if Sir Roy Fedden and the company parted.
How are we going to employ Sir Roy Fedden, and on what terms? Everyone agrees that the services which he can render are very great, and the Minister has offered him a position involving his going to America. It is a position connected with this most vital matter of engines and various other matters in connexion with flying which are so necessary to the Minister's Department. It is indeed a post of the highest importance and Sir Roy Fedden has accepted it. Of course there have been negotiations, but I am quite certain that this job which the Minister has offered to Sir Roy Fedden and which he has accepted is one of the highest importance, and will give Sir Roy Fedden the opportunity of accomplishing even greater things than were within his scope in his former position. As my noble friend Lord Brabazon has truly said, it is quality not merely quantity, nor the personalities of people, that will count in the winning of this war. The Minister has the great responsibility of seeing that these important and highly-qualified people—Lord Sempill has very clearly given some indication of Sir Roy Fedden's high qualities—shall be employed to the best advantage, that their services shall be utilized in the best interest of the country. I am quite certain that what we should all wish now is not that this debate should concern itself with personalities or personal feelings, whether they be between man and man or between a company and a man, but that every man should be employed in the capacity which will enable him to give the best service. I am certain that the arrangement which I have outlined is such that your Lord- 79 ships will be satisfied that in this case that end is being attained.
§ Loma BRABAZON OF TARAMy Lords, I have to thank my noble friend for the reply which he has given. I must say that he devoted a good deal of his speech to defending the Minister whom I did not attack in any way. This matter had been boiling up long before my term of office, and if the advice of Sir Kingsley Wood, ten years ago almost, had been taken the present situation would never have arisen. I still think that Sir Roy Fedden's chief work, and that in which he could be most usefully employed, lies with his own creations, his own engines. But I think it goes to show the excellence of the present Minister that he has now arranged to use Sir Roy Fedden in the best way he possibly can. I sincerely hope that, although the Bristol Company is going to suffer, the advice and help which Sir Roy Fedden will give to the country, through the present Minister, will make up for any deficiency in other directions. I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.