Subscribe now for full access and no adverts
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD
The Supermarine Spitfire has received more attention in print than almost any other aircraft in history, but relatively little has been written about the life of its designer, R J Mitchell. His son, the late Gordon Mitchell, offered some valuable personal insights almost 40 years ago in R J Mitchell: Schooldays to Spitfire. Then came John Shelton’s 2008 study Schneider Trophy to Spitfire: The Design Career of R J Mitchell, still the fullest assessment, although the focus is more on the machines than on the man himself. Readers seeking a concise survey of Mitchell’s career and achievements will certainly turn to Paul Beaver’s new book.
The author is well-qualified for the task by his background as an aviation historian, defence analyst, and vintage aircraft pilot. This is not Beaver’s first foray into the field. Spitfire People (2018) profiled the diverse collection of individuals – designers, politicians, airmen, and others – who contributed to the fighter’s development. The overriding message was that the Spitfire was the product of a dedicated team rather than the brainchild of one isolated individual. In Mitchell: Father of the Spitfire, Beaver again emphasises the importance of collaborative working, but without losing sight of the central figure.
Mitchell’s work on the Spitfire – which he famously dismissed, incidentally, as a ‘bloody silly name’ – will undoubtedly generate the most interest in the book. But the appendix catalogues more than 20 other aircraft, the majority of them flying boats and seaplanes, for which he was also responsible. This was a remarkable achievement in an aeronautical design career that lasted barely two decades, before Mitchell succumbed to cancer at the tragically early age of 42.
One problem with writing Mitchell’s life is the relative lack of documentary evidence for the years before he became famous. The author economically sketches in his subject’s early life, from a middle-class upbringing in Stoke-on-Trent to his move, aged 21, to the Supermarine works at Southampton, where he would spend the bulk of his working life. Mitchell revealed little of his inner thought processes, so sometimes Beaver guesses at what he ‘would have’ thought or felt. We are told that he kept a diary, but apart from a solitary entry written near the end of his life, it does not seem to have survived.
Mitchell’s personality emerges clearly as we follow his move to the marine industrial centre of Southampton – his strong work ethic, capacity for innovation and team-building, combined with innate shyness and an unsettling irascibility. The diffident, gentlemanly figure portrayed by Leslie Howard in the wartime biopic The First of the Few is far removed from reality. Beaver recounts Mitchell’s personality clash with rival aero engineer Barnes Wallis, whose attempt to restructure the Supermarine organisation led to an explosive row in 1930. The relationship between these two interwar greats later improved to some extent, as each recognised the other’s qualities.
Time of change
Mitchell was appointed as Supermarine’s chief designer at a time of rapid change in the aircraft world. Air power was emerging as the most economical means of linking Britain’s empire together, hence the focus on developing long-distance flying boats. The Southampton flying boat, described by Beaver as the iconic large British military aeroplane of the interwar period, the V-Bomber of its day, receives a chapter of its own. Noted for its reliability and endurance, the Southampton was a transitional airframe in design terms. The first 18 were constructed with wooden hulls, which were replaced with metal from 1929.
The 1920s also saw growing competition between the European powers and the United States in the field of high-speed flight. It was the biennial contest for the coveted Schneider Trophy that really enabled Mitchell to demonstrate his talents. Beaver charts Mitchell’s creation of the series of futuristic, low-wing monoplanes equipped with floats, culminating in the S.6B which captured the trophy permanently for Britain in September 1931. It is a familiar story, well told by the author. The races have been covered extensively in aviation literature, most recently in MHM contributor Jonathan Glancey’s 2020 study Wings Over Water.
Mitchell famously dismissed Spitfire as a ‘bloody silly name’.
The Schneider Trophy era saw Mitchell develop into a prosperous homeowner and contented family man, his motorbike and sidecar replaced by a Rolls-Royce for the daily commute to the office. He had lost some of his natural reticence and was building a local network of social and political contacts. The 1931 win earned him a national reputation, and the following year he reluctantly donned formal court dress to receive a CBE at Buckingham Palace. Mitchell had become part of the British establishment and was to be discreetly favoured with secret Whitehall intelligence about the growth of the German air threat. This was a time when many firms were going to the wall as the Great Depression deepened. Yet Supermarine’s embrace of new technology, combined with a sound business model, enabled it to weather the storm.
It is well to be reminded that the Spitfire was not a direct descendant of the S.6B seaplane design. Although the two aeroplanes shared similar sleek lines, they were very different in both purpose and construction. But the air races had taught Mitchell, and Supermarine, important lessons for the future when it came to designing the iconic fighter.
The evolution of the Spitfire, in response to the emerging menace of German and Italian Fascism, is the most moving section of the book, coinciding as it did with the onset of Mitchell’s terminal illness. Beaver emphasises his resilience and courage in fighting the disease, which he did his best to mask while continuing to work. Always a physically active man, Mitchell also learned to fly during this period. Meanwhile, the company installed a special lift to ease his daily ascent from the car park to his office.
The development of the Spitfire demonstrates the teamwork that was the hallmark of projects led by Mitchell. Beaver describes him as playing the part of the conductor of an orchestra, getting the best out of those around him. One memorable story is of how Mitchell’s colleague Alf Faddy drew out ideas, including the beginnings of the Spitfire’s famous elliptical wing, on the dining-room wallpaper after Sunday lunch one day in 1934.
The next day, the two men redrew the sketches from memory and modified them until the design was ready for the drawing office. Others receive due credit, including Mitchell’s eventual successor as Supermarine’s chief designer, Joseph Smith, and Ralph Sorley, whose idea it was to mount eight guns in the wings rather than four. And there is an honourable mention for Neville Chamberlain, who as Chancellor of the Exchequer made the necessary funding available for the construction programme.
Engaging style
As his health deteriorated, Mitchell continued to work on other designs, not all of which came to fruition. One was a replacement for his own amphibious maritime patrol and air-sea-rescue plane, the Walrus biplane. This was the Sea Otter, which first flew the year after Mitchell’s death. He was also working on an upgraded, twin-engine fighter with tricycle undercarriage, to succeed the Spitfire. Even more tantalising was his never-realised plan to build a fast four-engine bomber. The B.12/36 design, or ‘the Bomber’ as it was known, was on the drawing board when he died in June 1937.
Had it been brought to fruition, it might have played a critical role in carrying the war to Germany, possibly exceeding the Avro Lancaster in capability. Wooden mock-ups of both the Spitfire replacement and the Bomber were destroyed in the Luftwaffe bombing raid that devastated the Supermarine factory in September 1940.
Paul Beaver has based his biography on a command of the secondary literature, augmented by unpublished sources and interviews with surviving relatives of the key figures. The book is written in an engagingly informal style, providing just enough technical detail without overwhelming the non-specialist reader. Beaver disposes of a few myths about his subject. He is particularly scathing about The First of the Few and, separately, the oft-repeated claim that Mitchell was spurred to design the Spitfire after meeting Luftwaffe pilots.
It is fitting that Mitchell is being published in the 85th anniversary year of the Battle of Britain. It is recommended reading for anyone interested in learning more about the reasons why the RAF prevailed in the skies of southern England. The book closes with a mention of the National Spitfire Project – of which the author is one of the trustees – which will see the great fighter commemorated by the largest steel sculpture in the world.
The 40m-high monument will stand at Southampton, where the Spitfire story began. It will also be a memorial to the plane’s unjustly neglected designer and the dedicated band that he assembled almost a century ago.
Mitchell: Father of the Spitfire
Paul Beaver
Elliott & Thompson, hbk, 300pp (£20)
ISBN 978-1783969036
