Boulton & Paul Ltd was a British general manufacturer from Norwich, England that became involved in aircraft manufacture. Jeld Wen Inc. bought Boulton & Paul (along with another joinery company

John Carr John Carr may refer to: Politicians *John Carr (Indiana politician) (1793–1845), American politician from Indiana *John Carr (Australian politician, born 1819) (1819–1913), member of the South Australian House of Assembly, 1865–1884 * John H ...

) from the Rugby Group plc in 1999 to form its British subsidiary.

History

The company's origins date back to an ironmonger's shop founded in 1797 in Norwich by William Moore. William Staples Boulton joined the ironworks firm of Moore & Barnard in 1844. By 1870 Boulton had been elevated to a partner alongside of John Barnard and the firm was renamed to Barnard & Boulton. A later partner in the firm was Joseph Paul, and the firm was again renamed to Boulton & Paul Ltd, which started its construction engineering division in 1905. By the early 1900s, Boulton & Paul Ltd had become a successful general manufacturing firm. During the Second World War it was a major producer of prefabricated buildings, wire netting and wooden sub-assemblies of aircraft. In 1942 the Midland Woodworking Company of Melton Mowbray became a subsidiary. Richard Jewson of the

Jewson Jewson is one of the largest chains of British general builders' merchants, selling to small and medium building contractors. The chain comprises around 600 branches located all across Great Britain. Jewson is part of Denmark's STARK Group. His ...

timber merchants and former Lord Mayor of Norwich was a member of the board until retiring in 1947.

Corrugated iron buildings

In the 1880s Boulton & Paul were leading manufacturers of kits for corrugated iron buildings, which arrived in packing crates ready to be erected.

Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum The Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum also known as Woodhall Spa. (Cottage Museum, Woodall Spa,) as is the conservatory at Carrow House in Norwich, the former management building at the Colman's mustard works.

Monkton Combe School (Thy Word is Truth) , established = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , founder = The Revd Francis Pocock , head_label = Head Master , head ...

's first cricket pavilion was erected by Boulton & Paul in 1884 and a cost of £50. It was demolished in 1970.

Other building types

Boulton & Paul was one of the first manufacturers of prefabricated "Residences, Bungalows and Cottages", which they sent to destinations all over the British Empire and South America. Its 1920 catalogue contained a choice of twenty-two designs with several varieties of bungalow illustrated, ranging from the 'Modern Residential', through the 'Week-End' and the 'Seaside' to the plain and ordinary (with verandah). Many of its buildings are still in use, and include Castle Bungalow at Peppercombe, Devon (a former boathouse which is now a holiday cottage owned by the Landmark Trust) and

Monkton Combe School (Thy Word is Truth) , established = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , founder = The Revd Francis Pocock , head_label = Head Master , head ...

's thatched sports pavilion on Longmead, often referred to as one of the most beautiful cricket pitches in England, which is visible from the A36 in Somerset.

Aircraft manufacture

In 1915, Boulton & Paul began to construct aircraft under contract including 550 of the

Royal Aircraft Factory FE.2 Between 1911 and 1914, the Royal Aircraft Factory used the F.E.2 (Farman Experimental 2) designation for three quite different aircraft that shared only a common "Farman" pusher biplane layout. The third "F.E.2" type was operated as a day and n ...

b. Fe.2 construction was passed over to another

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

n company so Boulton Paul could concentrate on production of more advanced designs. Their extensive use of jigs and the manufacture of the smaller fittings required meant that they could maintain fast production. A new production site was built and an assembly and proving ground developed on Mousehold Heath in Norwich rather than transport the aircraft to the Army at Thetford. During the war the company built more Sopwith Camels than any other manufacturer. Success as a builder of aircraft led to the company forming a design department but none of its resulting aircraft made a significant impact while the war lasted. The P.3 Bobolink fighter was overshadowed by the Sopwith Snipe and the Armistice came before the P.7 Bourges bomber into production. Boulton & Paul developed steel-framed aircraft under their designer

John Dudley North John Dudley North (1893–1968), CBE, HonFRAeS, MIMechE, was Chairman and Managing Director of Boulton Paul Aircraft. Born in 1893 and educated at Bedford School, North became Chief Engineer for Claude Graham-White of the Grahame-White Aviati ...

. The first was the Boulton & Paul P.10 which used steel tubes rolled from sheet metal. It was exhibited – but not flown – at the Paris Air Show in 1919. Official interest in metal frame designs led to an order of a single

Boulton & Paul Bolton The Boulton & Paul P.15 Bolton was a one-off experimental twin-engined reconnaissance biplane ordered by the Air Ministry to sustain Boulton & Paul's development of steel-framed aircraft early in the 1920s. It was the RAF's first metal-framed ...

, a twin-engine bomber design. In the same period Boulton & Paul produced another metal framed design, the

Boulton & Paul Bodmin The Boulton & Paul P.12 Bodmin was an experimental British twin-engined biplane bomber with its engines mounted in a fuselage engine room and with tandem pairs of tractor and pusher airscrews mounted between the wings. The two Bodmins built fle ...

, with its engines in the fuselage. North believed that a metal frame could be 10% lighter than an equivalent wooden frame. After World War I, Boulton & Paul made its mark with the introduction of powered and enclosed defensive machine-gun

turrets Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * M ...

for bombers. Its Sidestrand twin-engined

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

bomber, which could fly at 140 mph, had an exposed nose turret that was clearly inadequate. The subsequent

Overstrand Overstrand is a village (population 1,030) on the north coast of Norfolk in England, two miles east of Cromer. It was once a modest fishing station, with all or part of the fishing station being known as Beck Hythe. In the latter part of the 19t ...

bomber featured the world's first enclosed, power-operated turret, mounting a single Lewis gun and propelled by compressed air. The company licensed a French design of an electro-hydraulic four-gun turret that became a major feature of its future production. In addition to fitting turrets to bombers, Boulton & Paul was to install them in fighters. Boulton & Paul provided most of the structure for the R101 airship; the completed sections being transported to RAF Cardington for assembly there. The R101 subsequently flew over Norwich in return. In a depressed market in 1934, the aircraft division being its weakest, Boulton & Paul Ltd sold its aircraft manufacturing component from the main construction business to create Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd. This moved to Wolverhampton in 1936 as the area had a surplus of skilled labour and the council was able to provide an incentive in the form of a greenfield site and flying rights. In 1961 Boulton Paul Aircraft, by now a producer of aircraft equipment rather than complete aircraft, merged with the Dowty Group to form first Dowty Boulton Paul Ltd and then Dowty Aerospace.

Boulton Paul aircraft at Norwich

''First flight date shown'' * Boulton Paul P.3 Bobolink 1918 *

Boulton Paul P.6 The Boulton & Paul P.6 was a one-off conventional single-engined biplane built by Boulton & Paul Ltd to test the aerodynamics of different airfoil sections. It was later used as the company sales machine. Design and development The P.6 was onl ...

1918 * Boulton Paul P.7 Bourges 1918 * Boulton Paul Atlantic 1919 * Boulton Paul P.9 1919 *

Boulton Paul P.10 The Boulton & Paul P.10 was a two-seat, single-engined biplane built just after World War I to develop techniques for the construction of all steel aircraft. It is also notable for its first use of plastic as a structural material. Only one P ...

1919 *

Boulton Paul Bolton The Boulton & Paul P.15 Bolton was a one-off experimental twin-engined reconnaissance biplane ordered by the Air Ministry to sustain Boulton & Paul's development of steel-framed aircraft early in the 1920s. It was the RAF's first metal-framed ...

1922 *

Boulton Paul Bugle The Boulton & Paul Bugle was a heavy bomber designed and produced by the British manufacturing group Boulton & Paul. There were two variants; the Bugle I with 400 hp (298 kW) Bristol Jupiter II radial engines (five built) and the ...

1923 *

Boulton Paul Bodmin The Boulton & Paul P.12 Bodmin was an experimental British twin-engined biplane bomber with its engines mounted in a fuselage engine room and with tandem pairs of tractor and pusher airscrews mounted between the wings. The two Bodmins built fle ...

1924 * Boulton Paul P.29 Sidestrand 1926 – bomber * Boulton Paul P.31 Bittern 1927 *

Boulton Paul Partridge The Boulton & Paul P.33 Partridge was a single seat single-engined biplane fighter designed to an Air Ministry specification. One prototype was ordered and built for trials in 1928, but it was not put into production. Design and development ...

1928 *

Boulton Paul Phoenix The Boulton and Paul P.41 Phoenix, a single-engined two seat parasol monoplane, was aimed at the amateur private flyer and intended to cost less than the successful de Havilland Moth. Despite positive responses from its target purchasers, no ord ...

1929 *

Boulton Paul P.32 The sole Boulton & Paul P.32 was a British three-engined biplane built to an Air Ministry specification for a long range night bomber. A lack of engine availability slowed construction and by the time it went for tests the thinking on bomber ty ...

1931 * Boulton Paul P.75 Overstrand 1933 – bomber * Boulton Paul P.64 Mailplane 1933 * Boulton Paul P.71A 1934

References

Citations Bibliography *
Boulton & Paul aircraft history described in 1922 issue of ''Flight''
* *

External links

Boulton Paul
– British Aircraft Directory
Building Britain's WW1 flying boat fleet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boulton and Paul Ltd Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United Kingdom Defunct manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Norwich Wolverhampton History of Norwich