Preview of the 75th Anniversary of aerospace engineering at the University of Bristol online collection

Abstract

This online collection commemorates 75 years of aerospace engineering teaching and research at the University of Bristol. However, interactions with the aircraft industry started long before the Department was formed in 1946 [1], for instance when in 1918 the University began teaching a class in Aircraft Manufacturing. An early graduate of University of Bristol Engineering was Leslie Frise, who was hired by the Bristol Aeroplane Company to assist Chief Designer Frank Barnwell. Among accomplishments in his career, Frise designed the Type 156 Bristol Beaufighter, the Bristol Fighter in 1916 and the Bulldog in 1927. His most lasting contribution was the invention of the Frise Aileron, popular on many older aircraft, such as the Piper Cub, a major pre-WWII trainer in the USA. Frise took over as Chief Designer from Barnwell in 1936 and then became Chief Engineer after Barnwell’s death. Another significant graduate from the pre-department years was Archibald Russell. He was appointed Chief Designer of Bristol Aeroplane Company in 1946, becoming a leading structures expert and, eventually, Managing Director and then Chairman at British Aircraft Corporation Filton. In June 1945, at the end of the second world war, the Bristol Aeroplane Company offered to fund a Chair in Aeronautical Engineering at the University [2]. Sir Alfred Pugsley, who had been the distinguished Head of Structural Engineering at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Farnborough had just taken up the chair of Civil Engineering at Bristol. He persuaded Roderick Collar, a mathematician and engineer with whom he had worked closely with at the RAE during the war, to apply and he was appointed as the first holder of the Sir George White Chair [2]. The first six undergraduates arrived in October 1946 and graduated in 1948.