THE FOUNDING OF THE BRISTOL AERO COLLECTION 

 

The original idea for the Bristol Aero Collection came from Bristol aviation enthusiast Graham Kilsby, a former colleague of mine on the Western Daily Press.

 

We met just after Christmas, 1987, when he was in the UK on a visit from his then home in Houston, Texas.

 

He told me that he had suggested to Bristol City Council that Bristol should have a museum to celebrate its unparalleled aviation history and that it could be housed in the then redundant and derelict railway sheds at Canons Marsh.

 

His approach to the council had been made several years earlier, but he was still angry that they had rejected his suggestion as being of no practical use and had taken it no further.

 

Graham’s idea struck a huge chord with me as a former air correspondent and then assistant editor on the Western Daily Press and the following day I contacted Martyn Heighton, then Director of Arts at Bristol Museum, to inquire about its Boxkite replica and whether it might be loaned to an aviation collection.

 

He agreed that Bristol should have an aircraft museum, but that Canons Marsh would be the wrong site as, with no flying possible, it would be merely a dead assembly of objects.

 

We discussed the possibility of Filton as a better location and I then contacted Sir Bob Wall, who worked at the time at British Aerospace and I had known for many years through his position as Conservative leader on Bristol City Council.

 

We met at the Council House and after inspecting a large scale map of Filton Airfield, I identified as the perfect location an all-but disused site with derelict ex-RAF hangars on the opposite side of the runway to the Brabazon Hangar .

 

It was on the airfield, yet separated from the secure working areas, and had a road link to Cat Brain Lane that would allow easy public access from the M5, M4, A38 and the site of the planned Cribbs Causeway Retail Development.

 

Over the next few weeks I set about gathering potential members for a steering committee, starting with Sir Bob and Bristol solicitor Craig Begg, who had been closely involved with the ss Great Britain and therefore had a detailed knowledge of establishing and running a charitable project.

 

To these were added among others Sir George White, architect Stephen Macfarlane, of Whicheloe Macfarlane, himself an aviation enthusiast, engineer George Ganley of Rolls-Royce, who was involved in their heritage trust, and Roger Hargreaves of the Britannia Aircraft Preservation Trust.

 

Sir Archibald Russell also gave me his personal backing when we met at his home, but his health was too frail at that time to allow him to attend the first meeting of our group at a pub in Clifton.

 

The name, the Bristol Aero Collection, was chosen for its historic initials and to cover not just aircraft, but also engines, satellites, guided weapons, cars, buses and trams.

 

During the next few months, by telephone and in person, I discussed the plans with many leading figures in the aviation and business community.

 

These included Professor Roland Smith, then British Aerospace chairman, Chris Geoghegan, managing director of the British Aerospace Filton site, Tony Crook, chairman of Bristol Cars, Sir Peter Masefield, Sir Jack Hayward, test pilots Brian Trubshaw and Walter Gibb, Sir Andrew Breach, then chairman of the Bristol and West Building Society, and Walter Hawkins, founder of Bristol United Press.

 

My contacts over these months secured a considerable amount of interest and a variety of offers of support for the museum once detailed planning was underway.

 

Graham Kilsby also returned to the UK on a visit and we toured the RAF Hendon museum, the Shuttleworth Collection and the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, where we met Graham Warner, who offered to loan BAC his Bristol Blenheim, then undergoing its second restoration following a near-fatal crash.

 

At the beginning of April, 1988, I organised an inaugural meeting of the committee at the Holiday Inn, Bristol, to which I invited representatives of local television and radio, plus the Western Daily Press and Bristol Evening Post.

 

At the next committee meeting a month later, I offered to take on the role of full-time administrator to push the project forward, but it was decided that such a move was premature at the time.

 

Subsequently my duties at the newspaper precluded me from taking a part in BAC activities – in fact editor Ian Beales told me: “You can either work for the Western Daily Press or the aircraft collection – you can’t do both” - but I continued to follow its progress and received minutes of the steering committee’s meetings.

 

In June, 1990, I personally briefed the newspaper’s reporter, who covered the public launch at Bristol Museum, and wrote a leader column in support.

 

Over 27 years later, the £19 million Aerospace Bristol museum opened on October 17, 2017, on the site I had originally identified on the opposite side of the now-disused airfield to the Brabazon Hangar.

 

But it would not have been possible without the incredible work and dedication of the unpaid Bristol Aero Collection volunteers.

 

See Author’s Note 10, where one of their stalwarts and a former trustee, Oliver Dearden, tells their story.