The Supermarine Aviation Works stood on the Itchen riverside at Woolston, east of the city centre. It was a working aircraft factory in what was then a predominantly working-class neighbourhood, surrounded by terraced housing and the infrastructure of the maritime trades. Reginald Mitchell had worked there since 1916. By 1934, when he began designing the aircraft that would become the Spitfire, he had already been told he had cancer.
Supermarine Before the Spitfire
Supermarine had built its reputation on seaplanes and flying boats, which required a riverside location. Through the 1920s, Mitchell’s racing seaplanes dominated the Schneider Trophy competition, a prestigious international air racing event held over water. The S.6B won it outright in 1931 with a top speed of over 400 mph. Every lesson Mitchell learned from those high-speed, aerodynamically extreme racing machines went into the Spitfire design.
The Woolston factory employed several hundred skilled workers: machinists, fitters, metalworkers, fabric workers. It was a community as well as an industrial site. When Mitchell was designing the Spitfire, these were the people who would have to build it.
The Design Process
Mitchell began work on what was officially called Type 300 after visiting Germany in 1934 and watching demonstrations of the new Luftwaffe’s aircraft. He returned convinced that a new war was coming and that Britain’s current fighter planes would be inadequate. He began designing a monoplane fighter with elliptical wings – the distinctive wing shape that would define the Spitfire visually and aerodynamically.
He was working through illness. He had surgery in 1933 and returned to work within months against medical advice. Colleagues describe him as driven in a way that was different from his earlier career – focused, impatient with interruption, determined to complete the design. The first flight of the prototype K5054 at Eastleigh Aerodrome on March 5, 1936 was his vindication. Test pilot Mutt Summers climbed out and reportedly said nothing needed changing.
The Bombing of Woolston
Mitchell died in June 1937, two years before the war he had anticipated. On September 26, 1940, a Luftwaffe raid of around 60 Heinkel He 111 bombers targeted the Woolston factory directly. The attack killed nearly 100 workers and destroyed the production facilities. German military intelligence had identified the Supermarine works as a priority target. The logic was clear: destroy the factory, reduce Spitfire production, help win the Battle of Britain.
Production did not stop. The Air Ministry and Supermarine management dispersed manufacturing across dozens of smaller workshops across Hampshire and beyond – garages, laundries, bus depots, requisitioned buildings. Within weeks, components were being made across the region. The dispersal slowed production temporarily but the Luftwaffe never managed to destroy it again.
What Remains in Southampton
The Woolston site was cleared after the war. There is little physical trace of the factory. A small memorial acknowledges it. The Solent Sky Museum in the city centre holds the most significant collection including a Spitfire and exhibits about Mitchell’s life. His grave is at South Stoneham Cemetery in Swaythling. His former home in Portswood carries a blue plaque.
Mitchell never heard the name Spitfire used for his aircraft. He reportedly disliked the name when it was proposed, calling it “the sort of bloody silly name they would choose.” The plane he designed held the line in the summer of 1940. Southampton built it.
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