ABSTRACT
In the main exhibition hall of the RAF Museum at Hendon is displayed a Hawker Hart biplane in the yellow livery of a flying training unit. This aircraft was flown by volunteer pupils of the Civil Air Guard in the late 1930s, the formation of which was part of general defence preparations at that time. The revival of procurement for the Air Ministry after 1934 was the salvation of many struggling aircraft firms. Lean times had of course followed the cancellations of contracts and the collapse of orders in 1919 when little thought seems to have been given to a possible future emergency. The purpose of this article is to examine the effects of state intervention in the aircraft industry during and after the First World War on the fortunes of one of the private entrepreneurs, namely Claude GrahameWhite (G-W) of Hendon, sometime proprietor of the London aerodrome, pioneer aviator, populariser of aviation as a spectacle for the masses, and founder of one of the earliest planned manufacturing concerns in the new industry.
