Boulton & Paul Ltd was a British general manufacturer from

Norwich, England Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

that became involved in aircraft manufacture. Jeld Wen Inc. bought Boulton & Paul (along with another joinery company John Carr) from the Rugby Group plc in 1999 to form its British subsidiary.

History

The company's origins date back to an

ironmonger Ironmongery originally referred, first, to the manufacture of iron goods and, second, to the place of sale of such items for domestic rather than industrial use. In both contexts, the term has expanded to include items made of steel, aluminium ...

's shop founded in 1797 in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

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 building A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building. Hist ...

s, wire netting and wooden sub-assemblies of aircraft. In 1942 the Midland Woodworking Company of

Melton Mowbray Melton Mowbray () is a town in Leicestershire, England, north-east of Leicester, and south-east of Nottingham. It lies on the River Eye, known below Melton as the Wreake. The town had a population 27,670 in 2019. The town is sometimes promo ...

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. H ...

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 Colman's is an English manufacturer of mustard and other sauces, formerly based and produced for 160 years at Carrow, in Norwich, Norfolk. Owned by Unilever since 1995, Colman's is one of the oldest existing food brands, famous for a limited ra ...

mustard works. Monkton Combe School'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 A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''vera ...

). Many of its buildings are still in use, and include Castle Bungalow at Peppercombe,

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

(a former boathouse which is now a holiday cottage owned by the

Landmark Trust The Landmark Trust is a British architectural conservation, building conservation charitable organization, charity, founded in 1965 by John Smith (Conservative politician), Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or ...

) and Monkton Combe School'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.2b. Fe.2 construction was passed over to another East Anglian 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 Mousehold Heath is a freely accessible area of heathland and woodland which lies to the north-east of the medieval city boundary of Norwich, in eastern England. The name also refers to the much larger area of open heath that once extended f ...

in Norwich rather than transport the aircraft to the Army at

Thetford Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , in 2015 had a population of 24, ...

. During the war the company built more

Sopwith Camel The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the ...

s 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 The Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe was a British single-seat biplane fighter of the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was designed and built by the Sopwith Aviation Company during the First World War, and came into squadron service a few weeks before the end of th ...

and the

Armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the ...

came before the P.7 Bourges bomber into production. Boulton & Paul developed steel-framed aircraft under their designer John Dudley North. 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 The Paris Air Show (french: Salon international de l'aéronautique et de l'espace de Paris-Le Bourget, Salon du Bourget) is a trade fair and air show held in odd years at Paris–Le Bourget Airport in north Paris, France. Organized by the French ...

in 1919. Official interest in metal frame designs led to an order of a single Boulton & Paul Bolton, a twin-engine bomber design. In the same period Boulton & Paul produced another metal framed design, the Boulton & Paul Bodmin, 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 for

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...

s. Its

Sidestrand Sidestrand is a village and a civil parish on the coast of the English county of Norfolk. The village is north of Norwich, south east of Cromer and north-east of London. The nearest railway station is at North Walsham for the Bittern Line whi ...

twin-engined biplane 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 R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Mi ...

airship; the completed sections being transported to

RAF Cardington The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

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 Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd was a British aircraft manufacturer that was incorporated in 1934, although its origins in aircraft manufacturing began earlier in 1914, and lasted until 1961. The company mainly built and modified aircraft under co ...

. This moved to

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...

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 Dowty Group was a leading British manufacturer of aircraft equipment. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm ceased operating as an individual entity following its acquisition by T ...

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 1918 * Boulton Paul P.7 Bourges 1918 *

Boulton Paul Atlantic The Boulton & Paul P.8 Atlantic was Boulton & Paul's attempt to adapt their well-performing Bourges bomber into an airliner. They hoped to gain publicity for it by winning the outstanding prize for the first non-stop Atlantic crossing but a f ...

1919 *

Boulton Paul P.9 The Boulton & Paul P.9 was a British single-engined two-seat biplane aircraft built by Boulton & Paul Ltd. Design and development The P.9 was an enlarged development of the P.6 single-engined biplane, with a longer fuselage and a increase ...

1919 *Boulton Paul P.10 1919 *Boulton Paul Bolton 1922 *Boulton Paul Bugle 1923 *Boulton Paul Bodmin 1924 *Boulton Paul Sidestrand, Boulton Paul P.29 Sidestrand 1926 – bomber *Boulton Paul Bittern, Boulton Paul P.31 Bittern 1927 *Boulton Paul Partridge 1928 *Boulton Paul Phoenix 1929 *Boulton Paul P.32 1931 *Boulton Paul Overstrand, Boulton Paul P.75 Overstrand 1933 – bomber *Boulton Paul Mailplane, 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