Sopwith's Herbert Smith
 

Hi All,
Looking for a picture/photograph of Sopwith's Chief Designer (until 1920), Herbert Smith
Any help gratefully received
Cheers
Tarnished

The ever useful Flight Archive has this - see prev page for start of letter

hamilton place | usa | raes | 1978 | 0229 | Flight Archive



... it's a start!:D

Thanks and well done. I knew we could do it.

Tarnished

That's not the best picture in the land! Google thinks he's invisible with over 300,000 hits but no sign of any pix. He was not exactly low profile, one site even alleging his work with Mitsubishi in the 20s started the Japanese on the road to Pearl Harbor (a bit over the top!). In later years he visited the Northern Aeroplane Workshop and the RAeS honoured him just before his death. Surely a decent image is out there somewhere!

I know he is invisible, Google never let me down before hence my question here in the first place, most impressed with the effort and the result achieved.

Hmmm.

talking point mainframe

It is notable that T.O.M. Sopwith played down Herbert Smith's role in the design of the Camel in: camel | herbert smith | harry hawker | 1979 | 0032 | Flight Archive instead Smith is portrayed as being a compiler of others inputs. One wonders if there was some bad feeling between the two?

This may not be so far from the truth, although it has to be borne in mind that the Japanese fought on the allied side in the First World War, and that Smith was not alone as a Western designer in Japan in the early 20s. Eiichiro Sekigawa's 'Japanese Military Aviation' lists four manufacturers employing Western designers or having close links with Western manufacturers.

By coincidence, the company bought by BAe to ensure corporate compliance after the Saudi bribery scandal was 'Herbert Smith LLC'!

My late father knew Herbert Smith whilst Mr Smith was living in Skipton in the last years of his life.

My father had many conversations with Mr Smith and his wife.

Mrs Smith was bitter because the British 'establishment' never acknowledged his work with Sopwith due to his 'defection' to the Mitsubishi in Japan during the inter-war years.

The British resented the work he did developing the Japanese aircraft industry and unfortunately, as Fournierf5 points out, this work did assist the Japanese in producing the aircraft used during the Pearl Harbor raid.

At one point my father had Mr Smith sign a copy of a 'Profile Publication' of the Sopwith Camel - but over time I have lost track of this interesting document.

KR

FOK :)

Herbert Smith Memorial Trophy
 

From 1988 until the course stopped in about 2006/7 the Herbert Smith Memorial Trophy was awarded to the Best-scoring student in the Applied Technologies phase of the Advanced Systems Engineering Course (ASEC) - the Loughborough University MSc course run at Cranwell.

For many years Mrs Smith presented it personally to the winning student at the end-of-course bash.

IIRC the Trophy was a silver Sopwith Camel.

RED LINE ENTRY may have a picce of himself holding said trophy

The invisible man again . . !
 

According to a letter from Geoffrey Jones, in Flight, February 1978 . ..

For several years I was NAW's public relations officer and editor of the Northern Aeroplane Workshop journal, 'Tripe'. I was thus fortunate to meet Herbert Smith when he became an honorary member of NAW and participated in as many events as his age would permit. We soon appreciated how little recognition Herbert had received, and largely through the efforts of NAW founder John Langham, Herbert was made an honorary companion of the RAeS early in 1975. This was a long overdue distinction for one of this country's most brilliant aeroplane designers.

Anyone at the NAW care to assist?

The RAEs is not helpful, the listing on their rather impenetrable website simply shows . . .

1975 H. Kremer
1975 Sir R. Verdon-Smith

which is odd if this is an 'official' listing! An email to their library chappie (Brian Riddle) asking if there was any ceremony attached to this 'honour' . . . photos taken of the event . . . did the RAes have a picture of Herbert Smith . . . . brought no response (although their website still shows him as a point of contact) . . . and contacting RAEs on AGB's device was a waste of time, I don't recall anyone comprehending what the word ''archive' actually meant! So, ironically, it's still a riddle.

Anyone else like to try!

Apparently it's Herbert Smith in the dark suit on the colourpicture on this site:
Skipton & The Dale Through Time - Ken Ellwood - Google Bøger