Alliott Verdon Roe, after a varied career in surveying, tree-planting, fishing, post-office management and marine engineering began aircraft design in 1906. Spurred by winning £75 in a model aircraft contest held in London in 1907. Roe built a full-size biplane, which made some tentative hops from the motor racing circuit at Brooklands in 1908.
Moving to an abandoned railway arch on Lea Marshes in Essex, he built the Roe I Triplane which weighed less than 91 kg (200 lb) and was covered in brown wrapping paper. He called it the Bull’s-Eye Avroplane after the brand-name of men’s trouser braces whose manufacturer had supported him. In July 1909 the Roe I Triplane made the first official powered flights in Britain by an all-British aircraft.
Alliott Roe subsequently developed three other triplane designs, one of which he flew (and crashed three times) at the great Boston-Harvard Aviation Meeting of 1910.
A.V. Roe and Company was established at Brownsfield Mill, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester, by Alliott Verdon Roe and his brother Humphrey Verdon Roe on 1 January 1910. Humphrey’s contribution was chiefly financial and organizational; funding it from the earnings of the family webbing business and acting as Managing Director until he joined the RFC in 1917.
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