writes:
The Kingston Aviation Centenary Project completed its first phase
with the acceptance of its final evaluation report by the Heritage
Lottery Fund at the end of 2013. This closes the two year financial
support by the Heritage Lottery fund which has enabled the team to
build a portable exhibition, build a website and establish an oral
history programme whilst reaching out to the local community
Since January 2012 the project team has organised the Kingston
Aviation Festival in Kingston Market Place, a “Kingston Aircraft” art
exhibition in Kingston Museum, five exhibitions in local libraries and
one in Canbury Park Road as well as exhibiting at other events. 2,800
people, including 600 children, have attended illustrated talks on
Kingston’s aviation history in schools, pubs, clubs, societies and
local organisations of all kinds.
The most popular talk is “Bat Boat to Red Arrows – 100 years of world class aircraft from Kingston”. There is also “The Great Aircraft Factory, Ham”, “The Sopwith Story”, “The Hurricane Story”, and for young children “Tom, Fred and Harry build aeroplanes in Kingston”. You can contact the project if you know of a group who would enjoy one of these talks or if you would like to present a talk using one of these slideshows.
The website (www.kingstonaviation.org)
continues to expand in content. The “Hawker people” photo archive on
the website is increasingly interesting as more images are annotated
with individual’s names which pop up when you hover the cursor over a
face. If you have interesting group photos, especially ones taken in
the workplace, the project would be keen to receive scanned copies.
Also on the website are extracts from the first twelve oral history
interviews which include people like and .
Twenty four interviews have been completed. There is a significant list
of further interviews to organise and the project is always looking for
volunteer help with transcribing the recordings.
A more recent innovation is the “100 years ago this
week” newsletters which are re-living the growth of The Sopwith
Aviation Company at the pace it happened. You can find back issues
summarised on the website under the “100 years ago” tab where you can
also sign up to get future newsletters by e-mail.
Over the last two years the project has been
receiving donations of archive material and memorabilia all of which in
turn is donated to the Hawker technical archive at the Brooklands
Museum, run by Hawker Association member .
A considerable amount of duplicate archive material and a digital
archive are also being donated to the Kingston Local History Centre.
The project will be assisting Kingston Museum with
the aviation element of their First World War Exhibition in May this
year whilst continuing into the foreseeable future with talks,
newsletters, recording oral histories and populating the website. The
team is keeping the project running with the help of donations from
outreach talks and advertising revenue from the website. (If you buy
from Amazon, going to the Amazon website from their link in the bottom
right hand corner of the project website brings in a payment from
Amazon.)
The project team would like to record their
appreciation for the invaluable support received from the Hawker
Association and many of its members. Without the Hawker Association
agreeing to sponsor the initial Heritage Lottery Fund application and
helping establish a project bank account there would be no Kingston
Aviation Centenary project. The tremendous support from everybody else
contacted has been equally invaluable. Special thanks must go to BAE
Systems, the Brooklands Museum and the Royal Borough of Kingston
Council.
You can get in touch with the project via the website www.kingstonaviation.org or by direct contact with the Joint Project Leaders: 
020 8546 2715 (Outreach talks, Education, Newsletters, Exhibitions) and 
020 8949 5498 (Oral history, Website, Photo archive).