# Supermarine
**Supermarine** was a British aircraft manufacturer based at Woolston, Southampton, best known for the [Schneider Trophy](https://www.edgepedia.org/schneider-trophy) racing seaplanes of the 1920s and 1930s and for the Spitfire fighter of the Second World War. The company began as Pemberton-Billing Ltd, was renamed Supermarine Aviation Works Ltd in 1916, became Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd in 1928, and passed into Vickers-Armstrongs in 1938; it ceased independent operation in 1958 and the name disappeared with the formation of [British Aircraft Corporation](https://www.edgepedia.org/british-aircraft-corporation) in 1960.[1](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Company-Papers/Guide-to-aircraft-industry-records-Version-4.pdf) • [2](https://repo.poltekbangsby.ac.id/632/1/Air%20Warfare_%20An%20Encyclopedia%202%20Volume%20set%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf) • [3](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/ap9783/vickers-armstrongs-aircraft-ltd)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Origin | Founded as Pemberton-Billing Ltd at Woolston, Southampton; "Supermarine" was the firm's telegraphic address, adopted as the company name in 1916[1](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Company-Papers/Guide-to-aircraft-industry-records-Version-4.pdf) |
| Ownership | Vickers acquired the equity in 1928; taken over by Vickers-Armstrongs in October 1938 as its Supermarine Division[1](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Company-Papers/Guide-to-aircraft-industry-records-Version-4.pdf) |
| Schneider Trophy | Won the contest in 1927 (S.5), 1929, and 1931 (S.6B), giving Britain permanent possession of the trophy[4](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19930090650) • [5](https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/3672) |
| Speed record | S.6B S1596 set an absolute world air speed record of 407.5 mph two weeks after the 1931 race[6](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8636069/supermarine-seaplane-s-6b-s595) |
| Chief designers | R. J. Mitchell (1895–1937), designer of the racers and the Spitfire; succeeded by Joseph Smith[6](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8636069/supermarine-seaplane-s-6b-s595) • [7](https://www.baesystems.com/heritage/page/vickers-supermarine-spitfire) |
| Spitfire output | 20,351 Spitfires built; Castle Bromwich alone produced 12,129, peaking at 320 aircraft per month[8](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/culture/dont-change-a-thing-90-years-of-the-spitfires-soaring-success) • [7](https://www.baesystems.com/heritage/page/vickers-supermarine-spitfire) |
| End of the company | Ceased independent operation in 1958; the Supermarine name was lost when Vickers-Armstrong (Aircraft) Ltd joined British Aircraft Corporation in 1960[2](https://repo.poltekbangsby.ac.id/632/1/Air%20Warfare_%20An%20Encyclopedia%202%20Volume%20set%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf) • [3](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/ap9783/vickers-armstrongs-aircraft-ltd) |
## Origins as Pemberton-Billing
The company was founded by Noel Pemberton Billing (1881–1948), an English aviator, inventor, publisher, and politician, who set it up in Woolston, Southampton as a flying-boat maker; he chose Supermarine as his aircraft name, seeing it as the natural counterpart to submarine.[9](https://ukaeroarchives.wordpress.com/2021/12/21/supermarine-aviation-works-vickers-ltd/) "Supermarine" was in fact the telegraphic address of Pemberton-Billing Ltd.[1](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Company-Papers/Guide-to-aircraft-industry-records-Version-4.pdf)
**Renaming in 1916.** After being elected a Member of Parliament on 10 March 1916, Pemberton Billing sold his share of the firm to his factory manager Hubert Scott-Paine; with Scott-Paine as managing director, the company was renamed and registered on 20 September 1916 as Supermarine Aviation Works Limited.[10](https://sova.si.edu/record/nasm.xxxx.0794?i=133&n=10&q=Navigation&s=130&t=C) Most of the company's products before 1936 were flying boats or seaplanes.[1](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Company-Papers/Guide-to-aircraft-industry-records-Version-4.pdf)
## The Schneider Trophy years
The Schneider Trophy, announced in 1912 to promote the development of aircraft operating from open water, was competed for from 1913 to 1931.[11](https://collections.rafmuseum.org.uk/collection/object/object-89422/) Supermarine entered a lineage of racing seaplanes designed by Reginald J. Mitchell (1895–1937), who joined the company in 1917 and rose to chief designer.[12](https://www.spitfiresociety.org/content-RJ-Mitchell%2CSpitfire) The S.5, winner of the 1927 Schneider Cup race, was equipped with a Napier Lion racing engine and all-duralumin floats and had a top speed in excess of 300 mph.[4](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19930090650) Mitchell designed 24 aircraft including the Schneider Trophy winners of 1927, 1929, and 1931.[13](https://supermarineseaplane.co.uk/about-us-nt/)
**The 1931 contest.** The rules stated that a nation winning three consecutive contests would keep the trophy in perpetuity, but [Depression](https://www.edgepedia.org/depression) spending cuts removed British government funding for the 1931 event; a gift of £100,000 from the philanthropist Lady Houston allowed a British team to compete.[5](https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/3672) The contest was something of an anti-climax after the French and Italian teams withdrew, and Flight Lieutenant John Boothman flew the Calshot course alone, averaging 340.08 mph over seven laps to keep the trophy in Britain.[5](https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/3672) The S.6B was powered by a supercharged Rolls-Royce R V-12 engine; the Science Museum catalogs the race-winning S1595 with a 1,900 hp engine,[6](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8636069/supermarine-seaplane-s-6b-s595) while Museums Victoria records that Sir Henry Royce developed the R engine for the 1931 contest to give 2,783 horsepower, a 21 percent improvement over the 1929 S.6's roughly 1,500 hp.[5](https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/3672) Two weeks after the race, S.6B S1596 set an absolute world speed record of 407.5 mph, becoming the fastest vehicle on earth; Flight Lieutenant George Stainforth flew the record on 29 September 1931.[6](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8636069/supermarine-seaplane-s-6b-s595) • [14](https://schneidercup.com/speed-record-trophy/) A NASA history of aircraft design credits the S.6B and its predecessors with spawning a generation of military aircraft, and the S.6B remains on display in the Science Museum's Flight Gallery in London.[15](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19740023386/downloads/19740023386_Update.pdf?attachment=true) • [6](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8636069/supermarine-seaplane-s-6b-s595)
## The Spitfire
Eighteen days after the 1931 Schneider triumph, the [Air Ministry](https://www.edgepedia.org/air-ministry) issued Specification F7/30 for a modern all-metal land-based fighter. Mitchell responded with the Type 224, a monoplane with fixed landing gear whose complicated evaporative cooling system did not function properly; the Air Ministry ordered the [Gloster Gladiator](https://www.edgepedia.org/gloster-gladiator) biplane instead.[16](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/the-first-flight-of-the-spitfire/) Mitchell's team continued privately with a much superior design, the Type 300, in collaboration with Rolls-Royce, whose new engine became the Merlin.[17](https://www.spitfireassociation.com/spitfire_development.php) The design introduced a retractable undercarriage, an enclosed cockpit, and a new elliptical wing, whose true value was that it allowed the wing to be as thin as possible, reducing drag.[16](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/the-first-flight-of-the-spitfire/)
The prototype K5054 flew for the first time on 5 March 1936 with Captain Joseph "Mutt" Summers, Vickers' chief test pilot, at the controls; on 3 June 1936 the Air Ministry placed an order for 310 Spitfires.[16](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/the-first-flight-of-the-spitfire/) The first production Spitfire, K9787, emerged at Woolston and was flown by Jeffrey Quill at Eastleigh in May 1937.[7](https://www.baesystems.com/heritage/page/vickers-supermarine-spitfire) Mitchell, whose health was failing from cancer, died on 11 June 1937, and his assistant [Joseph Smith](https://www.edgepedia.org/joseph-smith) assumed responsibility for the aircraft's design and development.[7](https://www.baesystems.com/heritage/page/vickers-supermarine-spitfire) The first Mk I entered service with No. 19 Squadron on 4 August 1938, and by September 1939 ten Spitfire squadrons were operational.[16](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/the-first-flight-of-the-spitfire/) • [18](https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/our-history/spitfire-fighter-aircraft-supreme/)
**Wartime production.** The Spitfire's stressed-skin construction demanded precision engineering skills that were rare in the aviation industry, and Supermarine's small Woolston factory forced reliance on subcontractors and a new factory at [Castle Bromwich](https://www.edgepedia.org/castle-bromwich) near [Birmingham](https://www.edgepedia.org/birmingham).[16](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/the-first-flight-of-the-spitfire/) Castle Bromwich, handed to Vickers-Armstrongs after a troubled start under [Morris Motors](https://www.edgepedia.org/morris-motors), reached an output of 320 aircraft per month and built 12,129 Spitfires, the last rolling off the line in June 1945.[7](https://www.baesystems.com/heritage/page/vickers-supermarine-spitfire) In total 20,351 Spitfires were built; about 210 survive today, of which 78 are said to be airworthy.[8](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/culture/dont-change-a-thing-90-years-of-the-spitfires-soaring-success) The naval version of the Spitfire, the Supermarine Seafire, served from carriers, though it was never well suited to deck operations.[19](https://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_supermarine_seafire.html)
## Other aircraft
Beyond the racers and the Spitfire, Supermarine produced flying boats and amphibians for the RAF, including the Walrus, an amphibian used for air-sea rescue duties; the initial [Royal Australian Air Force](https://www.edgepedia.org/royal-australian-air-force) order for the type was for 24 aircraft known as the Seagull V.[20](https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C22565) The Woolston works also built the Walrus and the Stranraer flying boats alongside early Spitfire production.[7](https://www.baesystems.com/heritage/page/vickers-supermarine-spitfire)
After the war the company moved into jets. The Attacker F.1, completed at South Marston in July 1951, was the [Royal Navy](https://www.edgepedia.org/royal-navy)'s first jet fighter in squadron service, a single-seat carrier fighter powered by a Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal-flow turbojet with the straight-tapered laminar-flow wing of the Spiteful and, unusually for a jet, a tailwheel undercarriage.[21](https://airmuseums.co.uk/hangar/supermarine-attacker)
## End of the name
Vickers-Armstrongs formed Vickers-Armstrong (Aircraft) Ltd in 1954 to handle its aircraft business, and Supermarine had ceased independent operation in 1958.[1](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Company-Papers/Guide-to-aircraft-industry-records-Version-4.pdf) • [2](https://repo.poltekbangsby.ac.id/632/1/Air%20Warfare_%20An%20Encyclopedia%202%20Volume%20set%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf) In 1960 Vickers-Armstrong (Aircraft) Ltd was one of the companies merged into the newly formed British Aircraft Corporation, and the Supermarine name was lost at that point.[3](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/ap9783/vickers-armstrongs-aircraft-ltd) • [23](https://www.aerosociety.com/news/audio-classic-lecture-history-of-supermarine-by-an-clifton-fraes/) The company's paper record survives in archives: the RAF Museum holds about 50,000 Supermarine drawings, mostly from the 1930s to the late 1940s, in which the first three digits of a drawing number indicate the aircraft type, 300 being the Spitfire I and 349 the Spitfire V.[24](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/our-collection/collections/archive-collection/supermarine-drawings/)
## References
1. [Records of the British Aviation Industry, RAF Museum](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Company-Papers/Guide-to-aircraft-industry-records-Version-4.pdf)
2. [Air Warfare: An Encyclopedia, entry on Supermarine](https://repo.poltekbangsby.ac.id/632/1/Air%20Warfare_%20An%20Encyclopedia%202%20Volume%20set%20%28%20PDFDrive%20%29.pdf)
3. [Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd, Science Museum Group Collection](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/ap9783/vickers-armstrongs-aircraft-ltd)
4. [Supermarine S.5 Seaplane (British): Winner of the 1927 Schneider Cup Race, NACA Aircraft Circular No. 67, NASA NTRS](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19930090650)
5. [Supermarine S.6B & The Schneider Trophy, Museums Victoria](https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/3672)
6. [Supermarine Seaplane, S.6B. S1595, Science Museum Group Collection](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8636069/supermarine-seaplane-s-6b-s595)
7. [Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire, BAE Systems Heritage](https://www.baesystems.com/heritage/page/vickers-supermarine-spitfire)
8. ["Don't change a thing": 90 years of the Spitfire's soaring success, Country Life](https://www.countrylife.co.uk/culture/dont-change-a-thing-90-years-of-the-spitfires-soaring-success)
9. [Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd, Aviation and Aerospace Archives Initiative](https://ukaeroarchives.wordpress.com/2021/12/21/supermarine-aviation-works-vickers-ltd/)
10. [Pemberton Billing P.B.2 Album, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum SOVA](https://sova.si.edu/record/nasm.xxxx.0794?i=133&n=10&q=Navigation&s=130&t=C)
11. [Miniature of the Schneider Trophy, RAF Museum Collections](https://collections.rafmuseum.org.uk/collection/object/object-89422/)
12. [Reginald Joseph Mitchell CBE, FRAeS (1895–1937), The Spitfire Society](https://www.spitfiresociety.org/content-RJ-Mitchell%2CSpitfire)
13. [About Us, S5 Supermarine](https://supermarineseaplane.co.uk/about-us-nt/)
14. [Speed Record Trophy, Schneider Cup](https://schneidercup.com/speed-record-trophy/)
15. [Progress in Aircraft Design Since 1903, NASA NTRS](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19740023386/downloads/19740023386_Update.pdf?attachment=true)
16. [The first flight of the Spitfire, RAF Museum](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/the-first-flight-of-the-spitfire/)
17. [Spitfire Design & Development, Spitfire Association](https://www.spitfireassociation.com/spitfire_development.php)
18. [Spitfire: Fighter Aircraft Supreme, Royal Air Force](https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/our-history/spitfire-fighter-aircraft-supreme/)
19. [Supermarine Seafire: Development and Service Record, History of War](https://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_supermarine_seafire.html)
20. [Supermarine Walrus amphibian aircraft of No. 276 Squadron RAF, Australian War Memorial](https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C22565)
21. [Supermarine Attacker F.1 in 3D: Plate 104, Air Museums](https://airmuseums.co.uk/hangar/supermarine-attacker)
22. [Supermarine Scimitar — History, Specs & Stories, MigFlug](https://migflug.com/aircraft/supermarine-scimitar/)
23. [Classic Lecture: History of Supermarine by A.N. Clifton FRAeS, Royal Aeronautical Society](https://www.aerosociety.com/news/audio-classic-lecture-history-of-supermarine-by-an-clifton-fraes/)
24. [Supermarine drawings, RAF Museum Archive Collection](https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/our-collection/collections/archive-collection/supermarine-drawings/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Technology and the built world › Transport and spaceflight › Aviation › Aircraft › Aircraft manufacturers and design bureaus › Historic and defunct manufacturers*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license