Catalogue No: | C0884 |
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Category: | Corporate/Business |
Object Type: | Model |
Object Name: | Proposed Sandringham Memorial model |
Part No: | None |
Serial No: | None |
Manufacturer: | Unknown |
Division: | Not Applicable |
Platform(s): | |
Year of Manufacture: | circa 1996 |
Dimensions: |
Width (mm): 267 Height (mm): 111 Depth (mm): 267 Weight (g): 2,080 |
Location: | Rack RAA11 [Main Store] |
None
Short Brothers plc, usually referred to as Shorts or Short, is an aerospace company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Shorts was founded in 1908 in London and was the first company in the world to make production aircraft. Due to the company's success, and the increasing number of seaplanes being produced, larger premises with ready access to the sea were needed. In 1913 an 8.4 acre plot of land by the river Medway at Borstal, near Rochester, Kent, was purchased and the planning and construction work started. By early 1915, the first facility of what was to become known as the Seaplane Works was completed. During the 1920s and 1930s, flying boats were favoured for long-range civil aviation, because their operation did not rely on the existence of suitable airfields, which were not widespread at the time. Shorts work on seaplanes eventually culminated in the Short Sandringham and Short Seaford, 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) market, in competition with 4-engined land planes such as modified Avro Lancasters, Avro Lancastrian and Avro York. During the early part of WWII 536 Stirlings were built at Rochester but the airfield was vulnerable to attack as it was indeed in August 1940 and production of land planes was moved to the Queens Island factory in Belfast. After the war the demand for aircraft diminished and especially the need for seaplanes and the Government decided to concentrate Shorts production in Belfast and on the 7th June 1946 the closure of the Shorts Medway Towns factories was announced in the national press.
For many years there was pressure to establish a memorial to Short Brothers on the Esplanade and this was one of the more grand proposals.
The Short S.25 Sandringham was a British civilian flying boat produced during the Second World War. A model of this aircraft can be seen through the windows of the Memorial model.
The given weight includes its 4.4m mains cable that provides power to the model's switchable, internal lighting. The role Rochester played in the History of Aviation is to be marked with a plaque dedicated to the founders and workers at the former Short's Factory on the Esplanade.
The Short Brothers Commemoration Society arranged for a Memorial plaque to be placed close to the Esplanade site and it was unveiled in late 2008.