1. Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS was a British aviation pioneer, businessman and yachtsman.
22 Facts About Thomas Sopwith
1. 2.
Thomas Sopwith was the eighth child and only son of Thomas Sopwith and his wife, Lydia Gertrude Messiter.
3.
Thomas Sopwith was a grandson of mining engineer Thomas Sopwith.
4.
Thomas Sopwith was educated at Cottesmore School in Hove and at Seafield Park engineering college in Hill Head.
5.
On 30 July 1898, when he was ten years old and on a family holiday at the Isle of Lismore near Oban in Scotland, a gun lying across young Thomas Sopwith's knee went off, killing his father.
6.
Thomas Sopwith was interested in motor cycles, and he took part in the 100-mile Tricar trial in 1904, where he was one of four medal winners.
7.
Thomas Sopwith was a member of the Great Britain national ice hockey team that won the gold medal at the first European Championships in 1910.
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John Moisant 8.
Thomas Sopwith became interested in flying after seeing John Moisant flying the first cross-Channel passenger flight.
9.
Thomas Sopwith soon taught himself to fly on a Howard Wright Avis monoplane and took to the air on his own for the first time on 22 October 1910.
10.
Thomas Sopwith crashed after travelling about 300 yards, but soon improved, and on 22 November was awarded Royal Aero Club Aviation Certificate No 31, flying a Howard Wright 1910 Biplane.
11.
Thomas Sopwith used the winnings to set up the Sopwith School of Flying at Brooklands.
12.
Thomas Sopwith Aviation got its first military aircraft order in November 1912, and in December moved to larger premises in Canbury Park Road, Kingston upon Thames.
13.
Thomas Sopwith was a member of the Air Squadron flying club.
14.
Thomas Sopwith challenged the America's Cup with his J-class yachts, Endeavour, in 1934, and with Endeavour II in 1937.
15.
Thomas Sopwith did not win the Cup but he became a Cup legend by nearly winning it in 1934.
16.
Thomas Sopwith was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 1995.
17.
In 1927 Thomas Sopwith commissioned yacht builders Camper and Nicholsons to build a luxury motor yacht he named Vita.
18.
Thomas Sopwith was sold in 1929 to Sir John Shelley-Rolls who renamed her Alastor.
19.
In 1937 Thomas Sopwith received the yacht Philante, built for him by Camper and Nicholsons.
20.
Thomas Sopwith married Beatrice Hore-Ruthven in 1914, but they had no children.
21.
Thomas Sopwith died in Hampshire on 27 January 1989, nine days after his 101st birthday.
22.
Sir Thomas Sopwith was interviewed on 8 November 1978 by the art historian Anna Malinovska; the interview is reproduced in Voices in Flight, 2006.