Above Ten Thousand
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United Kingdom · 1828–

Vickers

Vickers was a British engineering company with an extraordinarily long life: it began in 1828 as a steel foundry in Sheffield and did not finally disappear until 1999. Before it built aeroplanes it was famous for casting church bells, and afterwards for warships, artillery, armoured vehicles and the machine gun that carried its name into two world wars. Its aviation department was created in 1911, alongside a flying school at Brooklands, and the firm made its reputation with large aircraft: the Vimy bomber, the geodetic-framed Wellington that became the backbone of RAF Bomber Command, the Valiant V bomber and — after the acquisition of Supermarine — the Spitfire. On the civil side it produced the Viking, the Viscount turboprop, the Vanguard and the VC10. From 1927 it traded merged with Armstrong Whitworth as Vickers-Armstrongs, and in 1960 the British government compelled it to pool its aviation interests with those of Bristol, English Electric and Hunting Aircraft to form the British Aircraft Corporation. The Vickers name was dropped from aircraft in 1965 and the whole was nationalised in 1977 into British Aerospace, while the civil remnants continued as Vickers plc until Rolls-Royce bought them at the end of the century.

Updated: August 2, 2026

History

From church bells to the arms trade

Edward Vickers founded the business in Sheffield in 1828 with his father-in-law George Naylor, as a steel foundry that quickly became famous for casting church bells. The arrival of his sons Thomas and Albert — the first a metallurgist, the second a salesman and organiser — proved decisive for what came next. The company went public in 1867 as Vickers, Sons & Company and broadened its range into marine shafts and propellers, forging presses and forgings for gun barrel makers. By the late 1880s, with tool steel demand falling away, the shareholders approved a capital increase to move into large-scale armaments; within a couple of years the firm had produced and tested both its first artillery piece and its first armour plate. In 1897 it bought the Barrow-in-Furness shipyard and with it the Maxim Nordenfelt gun works, becoming Vickers, Sons & Maxim — able to deliver the ship and the guns that armed it from a single house. In 1901 Holland 1, the Royal Navy's first submarine, was launched at Barrow.

Into aviation

In 1911 the company was renamed Vickers Ltd, formed its aviation department and in January 1912 opened a school of flying at Brooklands in Surrey, which would remain the heart of its aircraft work for decades. The First World War made it one of the principal armaments manufacturers of the Allied nations. In 1927 it merged with the Tyneside engineering firm Armstrong Whitworth to form Vickers-Armstrongs, a conglomerate with a major yard on each British coast which by 1935, before rearmament had even begun, was the third-largest manufacturing employer in the country, behind only Unilever and ICI. The air side was reorganised as Vickers (Aviation) Ltd in 1928 and soon afterwards acquired Supermarine Aviation Works, the company responsible for the Spitfire; in 1938 the two were unified as Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd, though each works went on branding its aircraft as before.

Big aeroplanes, from Brooklands outwards

Vickers specialised in large aircraft. Between the wars Rex Pierson designed the Wellesley using the geodetic airframe principle devised by the structural engineer Barnes Wallis, and from it evolved the Wellington, a mainstay of RAF Bomber Command and Coastal Command throughout the Second World War. The scale of that effort explains the company's industrial record as a whole: just over 16,000 aircraft were built under the Vickers name between 1911 and 1970, and the 11,462 Wellingtons together with the structurally similar 846 Warwicks account on their own for more than three-quarters of the total. After the war came the Valiant strategic bomber and a notable commercial line: the piston-engined Viking, the Viscount turboprop, the Vanguard and finally the VC10, which the RAF kept flying as an aerial refuelling tanker until 2013.

Mergers, nationalisation and the end

In 1960 the British government forced consolidation on the industry: Vickers pooled its aviation interests with Bristol, English Electric and Hunting Aircraft to create the British Aircraft Corporation, in which Vickers and English Electric each took forty per cent and Bristol the remaining twenty. The Supermarine works closed in 1963 and BAC dropped the Vickers brand from aircraft in 1965; in 1977 the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act folded BAC into British Aerospace and the Barrow yard into British Shipbuilders. What was left outside that settlement was gathered into the listed company Vickers plc, which kept buying through the 1980s and 1990s — the Leeds ordnance factory, the automotive engineers Cosworth, the waterjet maker Kamewa — until it sold Rolls-Royce Motors and Cosworth to the Volkswagen Group in 1998. In 1999 Rolls-Royce plc acquired the rest of the company and passed the defence arm to Alvis plc; the Vickers name lived on in Alvis Vickers until BAE Systems took that business over in 2004. The Barrow yard, by contrast, is still at work today as part of BAE Systems Submarines.

Catalog — Aircraft

  • 1914

    Vickers F.B.5 Sheet pending

    Variants (6)
    • E.F.B.2
    • E.F.B.3
    • E.F.B.5
    • F.B.5
    • F.B.6
    • F.B.9
  • 1917

    Vickers Vimy Sheet pending

    Variants (5)
    • A.N.F. Express Les Mureaux
    • F.B.27A Vimy II
    • F.B.27 Vimy
    • Vimy Ambulance
    • Vimy Commercial
  • 1921

    Vickers Valentia Sheet pending

  • 1922

    Vickers Victoria Sheet pending

    Variants (6)
    • Type 117 Victoria Mk III
    • Type 145 Victoria Mk IV
    • Type 169 Victoria Mk V
    • Type 262 Victoria Mk VI
    • Type 56 Victoria Mk I
    • Type 81 Victoria Mk II
  • 1922

    Vickers Virginia Sheet pending

    Variants (12)
    • Type 100 Virginia Mk V
    • Type 108 Virginia Mk VI
    • Type 112 Virginia Mk VII
    • Type 115 Virginia Mk VIII
    • Type 128 Virginia Mk IX
    • Type 129 Virginia Mk VII
    • Type 139 Virginia Mk X
    • Type 57 Virginia Mk I
    • Type 76 Virginia Mk II
    • Type 79 Virginia Mk III
    • Type 96 Virginia Mk I
    • Type 99 Virginia Mk IV
  • 1923

    Vickers Type 170 Vanguard Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Type 103
    • Type 170
    • Type 62
  • 1924

    Vickers Venture Sheet pending

  • 1926

    Vickers Type 123 Sheet pending

  • 1928

    Vickers Vellore Sheet pending

    Variants (5)
    • Vellore I
    • Vellore II
    • Vellore III
    • Vellore IV
    • Vellox
  • 1929

    Vickers Type 143 Sheet pending

    Variants (2)
    • Type 143
    • Type 177
  • 1929

    Vickers Vanox Sheet pending

  • 1930

    Vickers Viastra Sheet pending

    Variants (8)
    • Viastra I
    • Viastra II
    • Viastra III
    • Viastra IX
    • Viastra VI
    • Viastra VIII
    • Viastra X
    • Wallis-Viastra
  • 1931

    Vickers Type 163 Sheet pending

  • 1931

    Vickers Type 161 Sheet pending

  • 1933

    Vickers Type 207 Sheet pending

  • 1934

    Vickers Type 253 Sheet pending

  • 1935

    Vickers Wellesley Sheet pending

    Variants (7)
    • Type 287 Wellesley Mk I
    • Type 289
    • Type 291
    • Type 292
    • Type 294
    • Type 402
    • Wellesley Mk II
  • 1936

    Vickers Wellington Sheet pending

    Variants (41)
    • Type 271
    • Type 285 Wellington Mk I
    • Type 290 Wellington Mk I
    • Type 298 Wellington Mk II prototype
    • Type 299 Wellington Mk III prototype
    • Type 406 Wellington Mk II
    • Type 407/421 Wellington Mk V
    • Type 408 Wellington Mk IA
    • Type 410 Wellington Mk IV prototype
    • Type 416 Wellington (II)
    • Type 416 Wellington Mk IC
    • Type 417 Wellington B Mk III
    • Type 418 Wellington DWI Mk I
    • Type 419 Wellington DWI Mk II
    • Type 424 Wellington B Mk IV
    • Type 429 Wellington GR Mk VIII
    • Type 430 Wellington Mk VII
    • Type 431 Wellington Mk VI
    • Type 435 Wellington Mk IC
    • Type 437 Wellington Mk IX
    • Type 439 Wellington Mk II
    • Type 440 Wellington B Mk X
    • Type 442 Wellington B Mk VI
    • Type 443 Wellington Mk V
    • Type 445 Wellington (I)
    • Type 449 Wellington Mk VIG
    • Type 454/459 Wellington Mk IX
    • Type 455 Wellington GR Mk XII
    • Type 458 Wellington GR Mk XI
    • Type 466 Wellington GR Mk XIII
    • Type 467 Wellington GR Mk XIV
    • Type 470/486 Wellington
    • Type 478 Wellington Mk X
    • Type 487 Wellington T Mk XVII
    • Type 490 Wellington T Mk XVIII
    • Type 602 Wellington Mk X
    • Type 619 Wellington T Mk X
    • Wellington C Mk XV
    • Wellington C Mk XVI
    • Wellington Mk III (glider tug)
    • Wellington T Mk XIX
  • 1936

    Vickers Venom Sheet pending

  • 1939

    Vickers Warwick Sheet pending

    Variants (12)
    • Warwick ASR Mk.I
    • Warwick ASR Mk.VI
    • Warwick ASR (Stage A)
    • Warwick ASR (Stage B)
    • Warwick B/ASR Mk.I
    • Warwick B Mk.I
    • Warwick B Mk.II
    • Warwick C Mk.I
    • Warwick C Mk.III
    • Warwick GR Mk.II
    • Warwick GR Mk.II Met
    • Warwick GR Mk.V
  • 1942

    Vickers Type 432 Sheet pending

  • 1943

    Vickers Windsor Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Type 447
    • Type 457
    • Type 461
  • 1945

    Vickers VC.1 Viking Sheet pending

    Variants (6)
    • Nene Viking
    • Viking 1
    • Viking 1A
    • Viking 1B
    • Viking C2
    • Viking prototype
  • 1947

    Vickers Valetta Sheet pending

    Variants (4)
    • Valetta C.1
    • Valetta C.2
    • Valetta T.3
    • Valetta T.4
  • 1948

    Vickers Viscount Sheet pending

    Variants (5)
    • Type 630
    • Type 663
    • Type 700
    • Type 800
    • Type 810
  • 1949

    Vickers Varsity Sheet pending

  • 1951

    Vickers Valiant Sheet pending

    Variants (5)
    • Valiant B.1
    • Valiant B.2
    • Valiant B(K).1
    • Valiant B(PR).1
    • Valiant B(PR)K.1
  • 1959

    Vickers Vanguard

    The Vickers Vanguard was a British four-engined turboprop airliner for short and medium-range services, designed and produced by Vickers-Armstrongs as the direct successor to the Viscount. It grew out of discussions the manufacturer had been holding with British European Airways (BEA) since 1953 for an airliner seating up to 100 passengers, together with the parallel requirements of Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA), which wanted a Viscount-like aircraft for its transcontinental routes. The compromise between the two operators explains the type's two defining features: the low-mounted wing and the double-bubble fuselage, with a long hold beneath the cabin floor for the freight BEA needed to carry. The airframe, far larger and heavier than the Viscount's, called for the new Rolls-Royce Tyne, a turboprop of some 4,000 hp (3,000 kW) against the roughly 1,700 hp (1,300 kW) of the Dart. That leap in power gave the Vanguard a much higher service ceiling and cruising speed and made it one of the fastest turboprop airliners ever built. The Type 950 prototype G-AOYW first flew on 20 January 1959 and the type entered revenue service with TCA on 1 February 1961 and with BEA a month later. It arrived late. Entry into service coincided with the commercial availability of a new generation of jet airliners, which passengers preferred despite their higher operating costs, and the Vanguard was left with a market that never materialised: only 44 were built, all for BEA and TCA. Its second life was freight — the Canadian Cargoliner and, above all, the nine British Merchantman conversions from 1969 — a role in which the type kept flying until 1996.

  • 1962

    Vickers VC10

    The Vickers VC10 was a British long-range jet airliner designed to operate from the short, hot and high runways of BOAC's route network. It first flew in 1962 and, after its airline career, soldiered on with the Royal Air Force until 2013.

  • —

    Vickers F.B.19 Sheet pending

    Variants (2)
    • F.B.19 Mk I
    • F.B.19 Mk II
  • —

    Vickers F.B.16 Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Vespa Sheet pending

    Variants (7)
    • Type 113 Vespa I
    • Type 119 Vespa II
    • Type 149 Vespa III
    • Type 193 Vespa IV
    • Type 208 Vespa V
    • Type 210 Vespa VI
    • Type 250 Vespa VII
  • —

    Vickers Viget Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers E.F.B.8 Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Vampire Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Vildebeest Sheet pending

    Variants (15)
    • Type 132
    • Type 192
    • Type 194
    • Type 204
    • Type 209
    • Type 214
    • Type 216
    • Type 245
    • Type 263
    • Type 277
    • Vildebeest Mk I
    • Vildebeest Mk II
    • Vildebeest Mk III
    • Vildebeest Mk IV
    • Vincent
  • —

    Vickers Vulcan Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Type 61
    • Type 63
    • Type 74
  • —

    Vickers E.S.1 Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Vixen Sheet pending

    Variants (10)
    • Type 105 Vixen IV
    • Type 106 Vixen III
    • Type 116 Vixen V
    • Type 124 Vixen VI
    • Type 130 Vivid
    • Type 142 Vivid
    • Type 148 Vixen III
    • Type 71 Vixen I
    • Type 87 Vixen II
    • Type 91 Vixen III
  • —

    Vickers Wild Goose Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Vernon Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Vernon Mk I
    • Vernon Mk II
    • Vernon Mk III
  • —

    Vickers 131 Valiant Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Hydravion Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers E.F.B.7 Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers F.B.24 Sheet pending

    Variants (6)
    • F.B.24A
    • F.B.24B
    • F.B.24C
    • F.B.24D
    • F.B.24E
    • F.B.24G
  • —

    Vickers Viking Sheet pending

    Variants (8)
    • Vanellus
    • Viking I
    • Viking II
    • Viking III
    • Viking IV
    • Viking V
    • Vulture I
    • Vulture II
  • —

    Vickers F.B.14 Sheet pending

    Variants (4)
    • F.B.14
    • F.B.14A
    • F.B.14D
    • F.B.14F
  • —

    Vickers Valparaiso Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Type 168 Valparaiso III
    • Type 92 Valparaiso II
    • Type 93 Valparaiso I
  • —

    Vickers Type 264 Valentia Sheet pending

    Variants (1)
    • Valentia Mk I
  • —

    Vickers Vagabond Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers F.B.11 Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Jockey Sheet pending

    Variants (2)
    • Type 151 Jockey
    • Type 171 Jockey
  • —

    Vickers Vireo Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers Vendace Sheet pending

    Variants (3)
    • Type 120 Vendace I
    • Type 155 Vendace III
    • Type 157 Vendace II
  • —

    Vickers Wibault Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers R.E.P. Type Monoplane Sheet pending

  • —

    Vickers F.B.12 Sheet pending

    Variants (5)
    • F.B.12
    • F.B.12a
    • F.B.12b
    • F.B.12c
    • F.B.12d