Whitehall Securities

Whitehall Securities was formed in 1907 to handle the financial affairs of Weetman Dickinson Pearson, who became Viscount Cowdray in 1917.

In 1897, Pearson's business interests were amongst the world's leading oil and construction contractors. These were converted into a limited company with an issued share capital of £1 million controlled by the Pearson family or by non-family directors. In 1907, Whitehall Securities Ltd. was formed to take over all of Pearson's non-contracting activities, while in 1919, S Pearson & Son (Contracting Department) Ltd. took over the firm's contracting interests. S Pearson & Son Ltd. became the group's holding company.

In 1929, Whitehall Securities became a financial investor of Airwork Services, a British private aviation conglomerate established by Nigel Norman and Alan Muntz the year before.

In 1935, Viscount Cowdray's younger son, Bernard Clive Pearson, took over the management of Whitehall Securities. By that time, Whitehall Securities had acquired shareholdings in a number of Britain's leading pre-World War II private airlines. Among these was Spartan Air Lines which was formed as a subsidiary to Spartan Aircaft which had been acquired by Whitehall Securities. In 1931 Spartan Aircraft's operations were allied to the Saunders Roe company in which Whitehall Securities had taken a majority shareholding. In April 1935, Whitehall Securities and Jersey Airways formed United Airways as a sister airline to Spartan Air Lines.

Whitehall Securities had acquired a controlling shareholding in Hillman's Airways, which had become a public company in December 1934 following the death of Hillman's founder Ted Hillman. In September 1935, Hillman's Airways, Spartan Air Lines and United Airways to form Allied British Airways. A month later, the new airline shortened its name to British Airways. On 1 August 1936, British Airways took over British Continental Airways, and the following month it absorbed Crilly Airways. Whitehall Securities was joined as investor in the merged airline by the French banking company Emile Erlanger & Co.

Whitehall Securities' financial involvement with the pre-war British Airways came to an end following the merger of the airline with Imperial Airways to form British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in 1940, which resulted in the industry's nationalisation.

Meanwhile, in the post-war era, Airwork changed its name to British United Airways (BUA) on 19 May 1960 following Whitehall Securities' agreement to let Airwork [re-]use the United Airways name together with the prefix British. (This preceded BUA's official formation on 1 July of that year, when Airwork merged with Hunting-Clan Air Transport.) Whitehall Securities held 10% of the new group.

Citations

Citations

References

• Dean, William Patrick (2008). The ATL-98 Carvair: A Comprehensive History of the Aircraft and All 21 Airframes. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-3670-5.(Google Books)
• McCloskey, Keith (2012). Airwork: A History. Stroud, UK: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-7972-9. (Google Books)
• "Airways — The Archive (The Legacy of BOAC (Pt. 1))". 22, 2, 230. St. Miami, FL: Airways International. April 2015. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)