British Wright Company

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Formed 21 February 1913, with Orville Wright as chairman of the board, to manage Wright Brothers patents in the UK. Griffith Brewer was managing director.

British government paid them ₤15,000 for right to use the designs for military purposes.[1][2] This agreement was largely brokered by Brewer, with his contact Mervyn O'Gorman, head of the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough.[3]

See also [1] [2] [3] [4]

References

  1. Howard, 1996, Wilbur and Orville, p. 386.
  2. Rt. Hon. Lord Brabazon, "Ad Astra: A Pioneer Reviews 30 Years of Flying: Lessons to Be Learned from past Mistakes: The Army and the Air", Flight 4 June 1942, p. 565.
  3. Hopwood-Lewis, 2013, Griffith Brewer, p. 265.

    On 17th July 1913, the War Office agreed to Brewer's proposal and appointed Mervyn O'Gorman as its nominee. O'Gorman was at that time the head of the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, and was therefore an appropriate choice. According to Brewer, O'Gorman and he remained friends throughout this period and "joked each other about the action." Most tellingly, O'Gorman himself told Brewer that he felt he was doing "a fair thing in the Wright matter" and that he had asked the government for reasonable compensation for the Factory's use of the Wrights' patent.


Names British Wright Company Ltd.
Country GB
City London
Affiliations
Keywords
Started aero 1913-21-1913
Ended aero
Key people Orville Wright, Griffith Brewer, Alexander Ogilvie
Wikidata id