- Cunliffe Owen Aircraft Ltd, Wide Lane, Southampton
- Nearly 3 centuries of Spitfire Makers!
- Cunliffe Owen Remembered
- Posted on Facebook by Hendy Foundation – 2th June 2024
Posted on Facebook by Alan Matlock – 6th June 2024
Cunliffe Owen Aircraft Ltd, Wide Lane, Southampton
Do you know someone who worked there?
The Spitfire Makers Charitable Trust are planning to unveil our eleventh blue plaque here on Saturday, June 22nd. After the war, the factory was taken over by Briggs Motor Bodies and then Ford but the plaque will mainly commemorate the original premises (now replaced by industrial units) mention the 52 who died in the bombing of the factory in September 1940 and honour those who became Spitfire Makers there.
Did someone in your family, or someone you know work for Cunliffe Owen during WWII?
They had contracts with Supermarine to repair Spitfires and later to produce the Seafire version of the fighter for use on aircraft carriers.
If you have a personal connection to a Cunliffe Owen worker, please get in touch via the comments or send a private message, or email: spitfiremakersresearch@btinternet.com and we will send you an invitation with all the details on how to attend the unveiling.
The plaque has been kindly sponsored by Hendy Foundation, the second of the two they have funded. It will be sited on the left hand pillar of the old factory entrance gates. A Spitfire Makers plaque to commemorate the Spitfire Flight Shed was unveiled on the right hand pillar earlier this year.
In order to anticipate likely numbers and keep the gathering within safe limits, please respond asap and by noon on Tuesday 18th June at the latest. Thanks.
Image owners unknown
Posted on Facebook by Alan Matlock – 13th June 2024
Nearly 3 centuries of Spitfire Makers!
At a talk I gave in Chandlers Ford at lunchtime on Tuesday I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting 100-year-old Norman Bartlett who helped make Spitfires and other aircraft at the Cunliffe Owen Aircraft factory in Wide Lane, Swaythling, Southampton.
As I had with me the Spitfire Makers plaque for Cunliffe Owen that will be unveiled next week he was happy for me to take his photo holding it.
Then, the very next day, I attended the moving thanksgiving service in memory of our good friend, Spitfire engineer and historian extraordinaire, Norman Parker, who died recently aged 98. He had a lot to do with the Salisbury Secret Spitfires charity and the replica Spitfire at Hudson’s Field in the city in July 2021. I’d visited Norman at his home quite recently and he continued to be as engaging as ever as we shared research.
At the reception afterwards, hosted by his family at RAF Boscombe Down, I met Kathleen Gainsford who, as an 18-year-old was making Spitfire wings in the Wilts and Dorset Bus Garage, one of the Secret Spitfires factories in Salisbury. She turns 100 on Saturday!
Kathleen picked up Norman Parker’s rivet gun from the table of memories and remembered how hers was much smaller. Also on the table was the pair of scissors, fashioned by Norman from some scrap aluminium.
Once again the familiar message came through from the centenarians: “We had a job to do and we just got on with it!”
Images by The Spitfire Makers Charitable Trust
Posted on Facebook by Alan Matlock – 27th June 2024
Cunliffe Owen Remembered
The eleventh Spitfire Makers plaque has been unveiled to commemorate the Cunliffe Owen Aircraft Factory, Southampton.
The plaque records the company’s contribution to Spitfire production and honours those whose worked, and died, in the factory. 52 workers were killed in a daylight bombing attack on September 11th, 1940, just two weeks before the Supermarine factories in Woolston were attacked.
Before the unveiling, Spitfire Makers’ chair, Alan Matlock, spoke about the factory’s history and its connections to the Spitfire. Among the items on show was a framed copy of the painting of the factory which used to hang in the manager’s office.
The unveiling was carried out by Helen Corben, daughter of Fred Burnett who died in the bombing. Helen was just 7 years old when he died and was very pleased to be asked: “I’m just amazed that anyone still remembers this after 84 years,” she said.
Mike Weatherston, one of the Hendy Foundation trustees who had sponsored the plaque, was also there to help with the unveiling.
Invited guests included other family members of former factory workers and even one who had worked there himself in the final years before it closed down.
Other stories emerged in the lead up the unveiling including how some women workers were employed at Cunliffe Owen and also by the parent company, British American Tobacco which was based about five miles away on the other side of Southampton. It could happen that they would turn up for a shift at Cunliffe Owen only to be told they were needed at BAT and the women would get there by walking along the railway line!
The plaque joins the one for the Spitfire Flight Shed unveiled earlier this year in Wide Lane. They can both now be seen on the old entrance gate pillars of what eventually became the Ford Works.
A gathering at a nearby café afterwards gave guests the opportunity to share further stories and to have a slice of the specially made Cunliffe Owen cake!
Plans are in place to put up another twenty or more plaques in locations linked to Spitfire production which are all within Southampton.
(Photos Sarah Penfold, Infinity Photography)
Posted on Facebook by Hendy Foundation – 2th June 2024
We are really pleased to have been able to help support Spitfire Makers with another blue plaque.
The Spitfire Makers Charitable Trust 