Cdr Peter Godfrey Lawrence (192011 June 1953) was a

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

pilot during the second world war, and an air race pilot and test pilot in the post war period. In 1953 he was killed, test flying a prototype

Gloster Javelin The Gloster Javelin is a twin-engined T-tailed delta-wing subsonic night and all-weather interceptor aircraft that served with Britain's Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. The last aircraft design to bear the Gloster name ...

. Lawrence's total flying experience amounted to more than 3,000 hours on over 80 different types.

Early life and Fleet Air Arm career

Peter Godfrey Lawrence was born in late 1920 in Leeds. He entered the aircraft industry as a Handley Page apprentice in 1937 and in 1939 joined the

in on a seven-year short-service commission. He flew

Fairey Swordfish The Fairey Swordfish is a biplane torpedo bomber, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. Originating in the early 1930s, the Swordfish, nicknamed "Stringbag", was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. It was also us ...

from 1940 to 1942, operating from

HMS Eagle Eighteen ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS ''Eagle'', after the eagle. * was an ex-merchantman purchased in 1592 and in use as a careening hulk. She was sold in 1683. * was a 6-gun shallop sloop, listed until 1653. * was a 12-gu ...

HMS Illustrious There have been five ships in the Royal Navy to bear the name HMS ''Illustrious''. The ship's motto is "Vox Non Incerta" which translates as "No Uncertain Sound". * was a 74-gun third rate, and launched at Buckler's Hard in 1789. She had two eng ...

and

HMS Argus Nine ships of the Royal Navy and one of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary have been named ''Argus'', after Argus, the hundred-eyed giant of mythology: * was a 10-gun sloop, originally a French privateer, captured in 1799 and broken up in 1811. * HMS ' ...

, and also from bases in the Western Desert. In 1942 he was posted to the Naval Service Trials Unit, and from 1942 to 1944 he made 450 deck landings by day and night on 25 different aircraft carriers. In 1944 he was appointed to the Firebrand Tactical Trials Unit to develop the use of single-seat torpedo bombers, which had just been brought into service. He was awarded an MBE in recognition of this work in the 1946 new year honours.

Test Pilot

In 1945 he was demobilised and joined Blackburn Aircraft as an experimental test pilot. After taking the (No. 4)

Empire Test Pilots School The Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS) is a British training school for test pilots and flight test engineers of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, England. It was established in 1943, the first of its type ...

course, he was appointed Blackburn's chief test pilot in 1948. He was promoted to Commander in the

Royal Naval Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

in January 1951. Lawrence's passion for flying was not confined to work hours. From 1948 he was a participant in major UK air-races, flying aircraft such as Firebrands, a Blackburn B.2, and a

Percival Proctor The Percival Proctor is a British radio trainer and communications aircraft of the Second World War. The Proctor is a single-engined, low-wing monoplane with seating for three or four, depending on the model. Design and development The Proctor ...

. He won the Kemsley Trophy and was third in the King's Cup in the summer of 1952. In June 1952 he left Blackburns and joined English Electric Aviation as a test pilot on the Canberra programme. However six months later, at the beginning of 1953 he transferred to

Glosters The Gloucestershire Regiment, commonly referred to as the Glosters, was a line infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 until 1994. It traced its origins to Colonel Gibson's Regiment of Foot, which was raised in 1694 and later became the ...

, with the aim of replacing

Bill Waterton William Arthur Waterton, AFC & Bar, GM (18 March 1916 – 17 April 2006) was a Canadian and British test pilot, squadron leader and correspondent for the '' Daily Express''. He was awarded the George Medal for saving the flight data when h ...

as chief test pilot. On 11 June 1953, Lawrence was flying the second Javelin prototype (WD808), which had recently been fitted with a modified wing. He had been flying for half an hour when he radioed to his home base,

Moreton Valence Moreton Valence is a village and civil parish south-west of Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England. The village is on the A38, just east from the river Severn. The estimated population of the civil parish in 2016 was 165. The Gloucester and Shar ...

, that he was in trouble. At he had entered an unrecoverable flight condition ( deep stall). Rather than abandon the prototype, he elected to crash-land with the intention of minimising damage to the aircraft and avoiding homes and people on the ground. He descended in a glide, but realised he was over playing-fields where teams of boys were playing cricket. He stayed with the aircraft all the way down to , put it into straight slow run in, and ejected. Unfortunately, he was too low and he was killed on impact with the ground.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, Peter Godfrey 1920 births 1953 deaths Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in England English test pilots Military personnel from Leeds Royal Naval Reserve personnel Royal Navy officers of World War II Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1953 Victims of flight test accidents