A Man And His Flying Machines

The Shuttleworth Collection of historic aeroplanes, vintage vehicles and a lot more besides is in the care of the Shuttleworth Trust which was founded by Dorothy Shuttleworth in memory of her only son, Richard.

So who was this Richard Ormonde Shuttleworth? Lets take a wander through the collection, look at the exhibits and learn a little about him.

A Clayton & Shuttleworth steam engine

He was born in 1909, the son of Colonel Frank Shuttleworth and his wife Dorothy. Richard's grandfather was the founding partner of Clayton & Shuttleworth, the Lincoln firm of agricultural engineers who pioneered the development of steam engines and threshing machines.

A re-creation of an engineering workshop 

When Richard was only four years old his father died and the family began to prepare the young boy to take over the family firm once he was old enough to do so. Richard was no great scholar however and just scraped into Eton. He failed to impress academically but proved himself to be brilliant in the school's mechanical workshop. Throughout his life he was fascinated by all kinds of machines.

Dreams of the RAF,

a 1918 Arvo 504K

On leaving Eton he just managed to get into the army where he distinguished himself mainly as a keen horseman winning several horse races. On gaining his inheritance he left the army and wanted to join the RAF but was rejected as being "too old"; he was 23 at the time.

The1898 Panhard et Lavassor bought by Richard Shuttleworth in 1928

and restored by him and entered into the

 London-Brighton Road Run the following year

He had already become interested in old cars and at the age of 19 he began entering the London to Brighton Road Run for veteran cars in several different vehicles which he had restored in his workshop. 

The 1939 MG TA Midget owned by Richard at the time of his death

He soon became interested in faster cars and won the Brighton Speed Trials, breaking the course record. In 1935 he won the Donnington Grand Prix and another big race at Brooklands. The following year he entered the South African Grand Prix and had a bad crash, leaving him  unconscious in hospital for 19 days. That ended Richard's racing career and he decided to take up something safer - flying aeroplanes (!)

Blackburn Monoplane 1912
The oldest airworthy plane of British origin,
 it still flies at the airshows held at Old Warden airfield.

Shuttleworth's obsession with all things mechanical meant that his new hobby did not end at merely flying planes. he acquired many old planes and restored them to airworthy condition. The Blackburn Monoplane seen above was discovered in a barn in 1937 and he set about a long-term restoration project. But we can do better than that......

1909 Bleriot Type XI
the oldest flying aeroplane and aero-engine in the world

This plane was built by Blériot in 1909, the year that he flew across the Channel. It was used at Bleriot's Flying School at Hendon. It crashed in 1910 and was bought by a scrap-metal merchant who restored it and taught himself to fly in it. It was put into storage during the Great War where it remained until Shuttleworth bought it in 1935 and re-built it.

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Richard joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Once he'd completed the training he was to join the crash investigation team. In order to complete this formality he took off from an airfield in Oxfordshire, soon afterwards the plane crashed into a hillside and he was killed.

Richard's mother kept all her son's planes and vehicles as a memorial to him. And what more appropriate memorial could there be? And perhaps the most fitting part of the whole collection is just a little off the main route taken by many visitors.

You can still visit the original workshop where Richard Shuttleworth worked on his planes. A young man was at work restoring one of the many working exhibits in the collection.


Take care.