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Roy Chadwick

Roy Chadwick, CBE, (April 30, 1893 – August 23, 1947) was an aircraft designer for Avro. Born at Marsh Hall Farm, Farnworth near Widnes, son of the mechanical engineer Charles Chadwick, he was the Chief Designer for the Avro Company and was responsible for practically all of their aeroplane designs. He is famous in particular for designing the Avro Lancaster bomber, its follow-up Avro Lincoln and preliminary designs of the Avro Vulcan V bomber. He also converted the Lincoln into the much-used Shackleton.

He went to St Clements Church School in Urmston, then studied at night school from 1907 to 1914 at the Manchester Municipal College of Technology whilst working as a draughtsman at British Westinghouse in Trafford Park, Manchester.

From September 1911, he began work at Avro at Brownsfield Mill when he was 18. When starting to design entire planes, he was based at Hamble, near Southampton. In 1928, he moved back to the Avro factory in Woodford, Greater Manchester, used today by BAE Systems. In 1939, production of Avro aircraft was moved to a new factory at Greengate, near Chadderton, today owned by BAE Systems.

After the war, he designed Britain's first pressurised airliner, the Avro Tudor, based around the Lancaster-derivative Avro Lincoln, though few were built. His final involvement with Avro was overseeing the initial designs of the Vulcan from 1946. He died on August 23, 1947 during a crash on take-off of the prototype Avro Tudor 2 G-AGSU from Woodford airfield, in the vicinity of Shirfold Farm. The accident was due to an error in an overnight servicing in which the aileron cables were inadvertently crossed.

He was honoured in 1943 with the CBE, after the Dam Busters raid. His daughters, Margaret Dove and Rosemary Lapham, are his closest living relatives.

• Biography and Avro history.
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