Background
Sydney Camm was born at 10 Alma Road in Windsor, Berkshire, the eldest child of the twelve children of Frederick Camm, a carpenter/joiner and Mary Smith.
Sydney Camm was born at 10 Alma Road in Windsor, Berkshire, the eldest child of the twelve children of Frederick Camm, a carpenter/joiner and Mary Smith.
In 1901 he began attending the Royal Free School on Bachelors Acre in Windsor (The Royal Free school became the Royal Free Middle School with the secondary school becoming the Princess Margaret Royal Free School on Bourne Avenue). In 1906 he was granted a Foundation Scholarship. In 1908 Camm left school to become an apprentice carpenter.
Camm collaborated with Martinsdyne on aircraft design and in 1922 joined the Hawker Engineering Co at Kingston, the firm whose fortunes were built on the Sopwith line of aircraft. Starting as a senior draughtsman, he was chief designer two years later. From 1925 Camm worked on military aircraft models, producing designs noted for elegance, grace, and for integration of their Rolls Royce engines and armament into the air frame. Working closely with the Air Ministry from 1934, the Hawker Co was in full production of the Hurricane when war broke out in 1939.
The plane was the RAF's first one-wing fighter faster than anything previously flown, maneuverable, and rugged. It was built around the new Rolls Royce Merlin engine and had eight machine guns. (Later the plane had cannon, rockets, and bombs.) In the Battle of Britain, 400 Hurricanes and 200 Spitfires defeated 1.000 Me 109s and Me 110s. Final production was some 14,500 Hurricanes, many going to Russia. The second- generation Hurricane was the Typhoon fighter- bomber (1942), followed by the Tempest, which evolved into the Sea Fury. Camm went on to design jet aircraft, the Sea Hawk and its successor, the Hunter (1951). The latter won the world air speed record and remained operational for 20 years. Camm pioneered design of the vertical take off and landing (VTOL) fighter, turning out the revolutionary P-1127 Kestrel (1958).
Camm was President of the Royal Aeronautical Society(RAeS) from 1954 to 1955. Since 1971 the RAeS has held the biennial Sir Sydney Camm Lecture in June, given by the current commander-in-chief of RAF Air Command.
Full-size replica Hurricane tribute to Camm at his boyhood home at Windsor Camm retired as chief designer at Hawker in 1965 and was succeeded by John Fozard. He, however, remained on the board of its successor, Hawker Siddeley until his death.
On the cancellation in 1965 of the BAC TSR-2: "All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 got just the first three right ..."
He married Hilda Starnes in 1915 and they had a daughter in 1922.