Short and Harland of Queens Island, Belfast, Northern Ireland (1937)
Short and Harland Aircraft Factory in Belfast, Co. Antrim produced many of the Second World War's most iconic planes. Known for their Sunderland Flying Boat and the Short Stirling Bomber, the factory employed around 20,000 people.
1936 Short Brothers (Rochester and Bedford) and Harland and Wolff agreed to form a new company to build aircraft in Belfast; Shorts would own 60 percent of the company; the shares would be distributed to existing shareholders. It was called Short and Harland. The first products of the new factory were 50 Bristol Bombays followed by 150 Handley Page Hereford bombers.
1937 Aircraft constructors. "Scion" Aircraft. 1200 staff were engaged there.
Shorts' work on seaplanes eventually culminated in the Short Sandringham and Short Seaford types, both based on the Empire/Sunderland boats. These flying boats had enough range to operate as a transatlantic airliner but largely served the post-war empire (Commonwealth of Nations) market in competition with 4-engined land planes such as modified Avro Lancasters.
Short's work on the Sunderland won them the contract for the Short Stirling, the RAF's first four-engined bomber. If based on their original submission, essentially a land-based Sunderland with various cleanups, there seems to be no reason to suspect that the Stirling would not have been an excellent heavy bomber. Instead the Air Ministry stipulated a number of bizarre requirements for the plane, allowing it to double as a troop transport for instance, that eventually doomed it as newer designs outperformed it. A high-speed, long-range, four-engined flying-boat, the Short Shetland was built (with Saunders-Roe providing the wings) in 1944, but the war ended before the second prototype was completed. The project continued postwar but was eventually abandoned.
WWII During the Battle of Britain, the Rochester factory was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe and several of the early-run Stirlings and other aircraft were destroyed. From this point on, the Belfast factory became increasingly important as it was thought to be well beyond the range of German bombers. However, Belfast and the aircraft factory were subjected to German aircraft bombing during Easter week 1942. To meet the increased requirement for its aircraft during the war, satellite factories near Belfast were operated at Aldergrove and Maghaberry, producing 232 Stirlings between them. A temporary Shorts factory was established at White Cross Bay, Lake Windermere, which produced 35 Mark III Sunderlands. Also during the war Austin Motors at Longbridge, Birmingham, produced over 600 Stirlings and Blackburn Aircraft, of Dumbarton, Scotland, produced 240 Sunderlands. Also produced Handley Page Herefords.
1943 the Government took over the ownership and management of Shorts under Defence Regulation 78: for the second time (after the nationalisation of the Airship Works in Cardington in 1919) Short Brothers was affected by nationalization. Oswald Short, who had resigned as Chairman in January of that year, remained as Honorary Life President.
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