Portslade in the Past: The Miles Brothers & Portslade

Judy Middleton 2002 (revised 2022)

copyright © G. Osborne
The Miles Family lived at Hillbrow, the second terraced house from the right, in the Old Shoreham Road overlooking Portslade's Victoria Recreation Ground, the terraced house to the left was the home of the Miles Brother's Grandparents.

Introduction

Although the Miles brothers have already been mentioned under Wellington Road, their contribution to the aircraft industry is so important that they deserve an article to themselves.

Portslade Background

copyright © D.Sharp
On the right, the former childhood home
of the Miles Brothers opposite Victoria Park.
On the left, their Grandparent's home

The Miles family lived in a house called Hillbrow, (see photo above) a terraced house, in the Old Shoreham Road, opposite Portslade's Victoria Recreation Ground. The 1911 Census records Portslade born Frederick Gasten Miles aged 34, was the proprietor of the Star Model Laundry. His wife, Portslade born Ester aged 30 and their children, Frederick George aged 8, Reginald aged 5 and Dennis aged 3. The family had one servant, Harriet Richardson aged 20. Their youngest son, George, was yet to be born in 1911.

Coincidently next door to Hillbrow was the terraced house called Lynhurst, where Frederick’s father George, mother Susanna and his siblings lived. The 1911 Census records that Portslade born George William Miles aged 58 was a surveyor and architect. Living with him was his wife Susanna aged 58 and their children, Reginald a house painter, William a carpenter and Marie Louise a school teacher at St Nicolas School. George William Miles built the Beaulah Mission Hall in Beaconsfield Road and was a Vice-President of Portslade’s Allotment Association.

George William Miles family had previously lived in Western Road, Portslade. In later years this road was incorporated into North Street and ceased to exist as a road name.

Frederick George Miles (1903-1976)

He was born on 22 March 1903 at Worthing, and he was the eldest of four sons. His father was the proprietor of the Star Model Laundry in Wellington Road, Portslade. Fred showed an interest in things mechanical from an early age and legend has it that at the tender age of three years he was able to mend a gas engine at the laundry that had baffled the foreman.

copyright © Brighton & Hove City Libraries
This historic photograph dating from around 1914 shows long-vanished parts of Portslade. The Britannia Flour Mills stands at the centre, the Crown Inn with the Tamplin's Ales sign is on the right, the Star Model Laundry is on the far left.

Fred was also a youth of some enterprise. For example, when he was aged thirteen he purchased an elderly motor-bike and he had no problem in keeping it in good running order. He then allowed local lads to have a ride on it at the cost of sixpence an hour to their great delight. He made enough profit from this venture to enable him to purchase a more up-market model. Later on, Fred purchased a 23hp T-type Ford van, which proved to be most useful in delivering clean laundry to the customers.

Mr Miles, senior, must have accrued enough money from his laundry to be able to afford a private education for his son who attended Hove College, just along the coast road. There Fred became friends with Charles Gates who had similar interests, although there was a six year gap between them. Charles Gates’s elder brother also happened to be one of the masters at Hove College.

In those days Hove College was situated in an old building on the south-west side of Hove Street, and opposite the Ship Inn. The boys enjoyed having their own sailing boats and rowing boats on the beach. Indeed, if they wanted to go to Brighton it was quicker to row there than rely on horse and carriage. But it is not known if the boys still enjoyed that privilege when the Miles brothers were there. Today the old school site is covered by Viceroy Lodge.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
1909 advert for Hove College in Hove Street, Hove (Not Brighton as shown on the advert)

Looking at an old photograph of boys at the school, it looks as though young Fred would have had to endure the discomfort of a stiff white collar while on school premises. Some boys were admitted as boarders but Fred, living locally, must have been a day boy.

In 1922 Fred went up for a joy-ride at nearby Shoreham Airport, and knew instantly that aviation was to be his career. Perhaps it was the thrill of being air-borne, but he had already become interested in aircraft. In the yard of the Star Model Laundry, together with his friend Charles Gates, he constructed his first plane. Of course, word soon got around of what was taking place at the Star Model Laundry, and soon fascinated youngsters were perched on the wall to watch the proceedings.

Starting up at Shoreham Airport

Miles managed to purchase his first aircraft for the bargain price of £5. But of course it needed work to be done on it, for example, he patched up the rudder with an apron.

Miles started up his aircraft business at Shoreham Airport together with pioneer pilot Cyril Pashley. By 1925 Miles had completed building his first biplane called the Gnat with the help of a group of enthusiasts including his brother Dennis Miles, and friends Fred Wallis and Reuben Hart. In 1929 Miles set up the Southern Aircraft Company in order to build the Martlet, a single-seater bi-plane.

Miles also earned money by working as a flying instructor.

Enter ‘Blossom’ Miles (1901-1984)

copyright © National Library of Australia
Women's Weekly 20 August 1938
Mr & Mrs F Miles talking to Colonel Charles Lindburgh, who became World famous for his non-stop flight from the USA to France in the Spirit of St Louis (a Ryan NYP) in 1927.

During his stint as a flying instructor at Shoreham, Miles met his soul mate while teaching her how to fly the Martlet. They fell in love and shared a passion for aircraft. But there was one impediment – she was already married to Captain Hon. Inigo Freeman-Thomas, the wedding having taken place in 1924. When she met Miles she was Maxine, Viscountess Ratendone, and her father-in-law was Lord Willingdon who became Viceroy of India. Maxine liked to be called Blossom and she was the daughter of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson and his wife Gertrude Elliott. It was a difficult time for them both. But Blossom was no social butterfly, and was already a pilot with experience; the first aircraft she owned was made by de Haviland. Female engineers were somewhat thin on the ground, and it was something of a mystery as to where her flair for such things came from because both her parents were actors. The divorce came through in 1932, thus allowing Blossom and Miles to be married.

Woodley Aerodrome

Both Miles and Blossom became distinguished aircraft designers.

Miles moved to Woodley Aerodrome near Reading in 1930. Blossom was a director of Phillip & Powis Aircraft Ltd, which was later brought out by Miles and his brother Dennis, and was then known as Miles.

Miles and Blossom specialised in low-wing monoplanes, which they built at Woodley. One of the planes Blossom helped to design was the Sparrowhawk.

The Hawk, the Magister and the Master

Phillip & Powis Aircraft produced the Miles Hawk, a wooden monoplane that was envisaged as a rival to de Haviland’s Moth. The Hawk was the first aircraft to go into mass production.

By 1938 Miles was supplying Magister and Master training aircraft to the RAF. Indeed, these planes performed a vital role during the Second World War because they were used to instruct young pilots. Although they were constructed of wood they had a similar performance to the fighter planes in use at the time. Air Commodore F. M. Donaldson ran a fighter-training school at the end of the Battle of Britain, and consequently he was under enormous pressure to produce more pilots as quickly as possible. He said that the ‘Masters were well and truly thrashed in service, flying round the clock with little maintenance.’ The proper name of the plane was Miles Master MK1, and it was the world’s fastest, tandem, fighter-training plane. The plane was also seen as the final stepping-stone before a new pilot was considered competent enough to fly a Hurricane or a Spitfire.

By September 1940 Phillips & Powis had produced 500 Miles Master planes, and eventually they reached the incredible total of supplying some 7,000 planes to the RAF at a cost of £25 million. It is not surprising that they needed to employ 8,000 workers.

The Messenger and the Marathon

Miles also produced the M18 Messenger plane, which was popular for the task of artillery spotting. The Messenger was used by Field Marshal Montgomery, Air Chief Marshall Tedder, and Air Chief Marshal Harris as a communications plane. It was Montgomery’s Messenger that took Winston Churchill on one of his battlefield tours.

Another development by Miles during the war was the Marathon MK1 airliner, which was their first four-engine air-liner and it was built by Hadley Page. It became the T11 Navigational Trainer for the RAF, and apparently there were still a few at Shoreham Airport in the 1960s.

Other Miles Planes

Falcon

Merlin

Mohawk

Monarch

Peregrine

Sparrowhawk

It was a Miles M3 Falcon piloted by Flight Lieutenant Tommy Rose that won the King’s Cup Air Race in 1935 with an average speed of 175mph. The plane sported the firm’s emblem of a flying falcon on the nose.

The success was repeated in 1953 when an old Sparrowhawk, fitted with two jet engines, won the King’s Cup.

It is interesting to note that in 1936 Miles designed the Mowhawk especially for Colonel Lindbergh, the Atlantic flying pioneer.

Miles also designed a different plane for Whitney Straight, the racing driver.

Jets and Supersonic flight

The Miles brothers worked together on the M52, a new, experimental jet aircraft, which should have, by rights, made Britain the leader in this field. It was Winston Churchill himself who gave the brothers express orders and asked them to construct the world’s first supersonic aircraft, and the contract was signed in 1943.

The specifications were that the aircraft must be able to reach 36,000-ft within two minutes of taking off from the runway. In fact on a level flight, the aircraft would exceed the speed of sound. The aircraft would be powered by special Whittle engines.

Of course the Miles brothers already had competition because the United States and Germany were also working along similar lines. It is significant that Dr Beeler, a member of the American National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, considered that the British team were ahead in the race.

Betrayal

In 1944 the Americans and the British agreed to share their research. Was this a gentlemen’s wartime agreement in stressful times, or were there official documents?

At any rate, the British acted in good faith. Experts from the American Bell Aircraft Corporation flew in to view the material, and went back home clutching all the data plus detailed plans. The agreement was that British experts would in turn fly to the United States two weeks later to view their material. It never happened because apparently the Pentagon stepped in and said that such information was top secret. The story is not idle gossip because Dennis Bancroft, chief aerodynamicist at Miles, actually stated that the Bell Aircraft people had access to the information but then reneged on the deal.

Also in 1944 Bell Aircraft began to design the X1. It cannot be a mere coincidence there were features that closely resembled the M52 such as the shape of the wings, and the fact that the whole tailplane could be moved in accordance with need or prevailing conditions. The big difference was that XI had liquid-fuelled rocket power rather than jet engines.

Meanwhile, the British continued with their own research and their prototype M52 was nearing completion when suddenly in February 1946 the Ministry of Aircraft suddenly cancelled the contract. It is instructive to note that in May 2022 David Bernstein, a former director of the Miles Group, stated that he had actually had sight of the infamous letter, which ran:

‘Dear Miles,

Please cease all working on this project to save time and money because Man will never fly faster than sound ...’(!)

With hindsight, it is easy to blame the British for their faint-heartedness. In reality they were operating in a fog of ignorance, and not forgetting the vast debts accrued from fighting Hitler, which by the end of the war amounted to an astonishing £21 billion. Indeed, it was only on 31 December 2006 that Britain managed to pay off the last of its war debt to the United States.

The British had absolutely no idea as to how close the Americans were to success. Moreover, they believed Germany was on the brink of creating an aircraft that could fly at the speed of sound. The Ministry had listened to the experts – not always a good idea. At the end of the war Ben Lock-Spicer, a senior civil servant, visited German research centres. Somehow, he became convinced that supersonic flight would only be possible with swept wings, which the M52 did not possess.

On 14 October 1947 Major Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force made the first supersonic flight in a Bell X1. In 1948 the Miles Aircraft Company went bankrupt.

Not the End of the Road

Many people would have been left so dispirited by this outcome that they would have retired from the fray. Not so Miles. Instead, resilient as ever, he set up a new company F. G. Miles together with four other family members. He was chairman and managing director from 1949 to 1961.

During the 1960s Miles developed aircraft simulators, and in 1969 this part of the firm was taken over by Links-Miles.

F.G. Miles Engineering was the last of the group to be taken over in 1975 with the new name of Hunting Hivolt.

In August 1976 Miles died.

George Herbert Miles (1911-1999)

George was born in Portslade, and like his brother Fred, he too was educated at Hove College. Just as soon as he had finished with schooling, George went to join his brother at Shoreham Airport. He managed the works, an also took excited persons for joy-rides, and well as teaching would-be pilots how to fly.

George stayed on at Shoreham Airport after Fred had decided to move to Woodley in Berkshire. But by the time war broke out, he had already joined his brother at Woodley in what was almost the family business.

In 1939 George married Corinne Mackenzie, and there was a daughter of the marriage.

In 1941 when Miles Aircraft was formed, Fred was chairman and managing director while George was technical director and chief designer. It seems that George was as innovative as his brother because he did not spend all his time at the drawing board, and acted as a test pilot, trying out his own designs. This sounds very dangerous, and indeed it was, especially the unexpected outcomes. On one memorable occasion George was peacefully flying his plane, when a sharp-eyed member of the Observer Corps spotted him. The individual was unable to identify the aircraft, and fearful of it being an enemy plane, summoned the RAF who shot it down. Fortunately, George lived to tell the tale, and what a tale it was.

At other times, George had to take the role of test pilot out of necessity because the company’s chief test pilot resolutely refused to try out one of George’s prototypes. Admittedly, the plane had a peculiar wing shape but it was George’s innovation to try and solve the problem of fighter planes operating from aircraft carriers. George helped to design the following:

Gemini

Merchantman

Messenger

Monitor

After the war ended, the M65 was the best plane produced, and it was a version of the old M38 Messenger with twin-engines. It is interesting to note that the celebrated Douglas Bader owned one of these planes.

In 1948 when Miles Aircraft went bankrupt, George joined the company Airspeed, becoming their chief designer the following year. Amongst others, he was involved in the design of the Ambassador, better known as the BEA Elizabethan.

However in 1953 he decided to return to Sussex where his brother had re-established his business. One of the firm’s last products was the M100 Student. Although it was a good design, and was shown off at the Farnborough Air Show, the RAF failed to show any interest.

In 1960 George became technical director of Beagle Aircraft but in 1963 he left to start up his own business of aircraft engineering. In 1966 George formed Miles Aviation and Transport (R. & D.) Ltd, of which he was managing director and chief designer.

George Miles died in September 1999.

Sources

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Daily Mail (28/4/2022 / 16/5/2022)

Mr G. Osborne

National Library of Australia

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

13 December 2022

The Miles Brothers & Portslade