Avro Name Replaced by Hawker Siddeley Aviation Ltd

1950s 1960s

In 1957 Duncan Sandys (Minister of Defence) published a Defence White Paper that cancelled many manned aircraft projects and suggested the aircraft industry should re-organise. Later that year the Hawker Siddeley Group commenced restructuring and diversifying. The Aviation interests were bolstered with the merger of de Havilland, Blackburn Aircraft and Folland into Hawker Siddeley, which already consisted of Armstrong Whitworth, Avro, Gloster and Hawker since 1935.
Within the Feb 1958 company magazine 'Avro News' was an observation that the 1957 Defence White Paper had led to the 'Shadow of Nationalisation hanging over us'.

Sir Roy Dobson, the same man employed originally by Alliott Verdon Roe as a draftsman in 1914, becomes Chairman of Hawker Siddeley and leads further expansion to acquire other non-aviation interests. Through these acquisitions and mergers the Hawker Siddeley Group became one of the largest Industrial organisations in the western world and the picture (right) shows the wide scope of the business.

In 1963, the Avro name along with others such as Gloster were replaced by the name Hawker Siddeley Aviation and aircraft projects prefixed HS. The Avro 748 would become the HS748 and new projects would use the new identifier for example the HS Nimrod. The Manchester factories remained relatively busy with 748 deliveries and developing the new HS Nimrod.

NASA
Following the 1969 moon landing, Woodford became involved in the early NASA Space Shuttle programme.

The image opposite (Bottom) is from a feasibility study showing one of many options for the proposed Orbiter.
Despite three years of participation no meaningful work would become of it.