Frank Arnold Bumpus was born on 20 March 1886 in Loughborough, Leicestershire, the son of Alfred Adolphus Bumpus and Clara Elizabeth Bumpus (neé Stevenson). From 1890 to 1895 he was educated at private schools, then at Loughborough Grammar School. He was apprenticed in 1902 to John Jones and Sons, Ltd., Loughborough, passing through machine, turning and fitting shops, and also the drawing office. Lack of work caused his apprenticeship to be terminated on 1 August 1905, after which he worked for six months at Alldays and Onions Motor Works, Birmingham, followed by Belliss and Morcom’s, Birmingham, which he alternated with Birmingham Technical School. Having taken his London Matric in 1907, he attended the Royal College of Science from 1907 to 1909, obtaining Associateship in Physics in 1909, then gaining his B.Sc. from Imperial College, London in 1910.

Awarded a Whitworth Scholarship, in October 1910 Bumpus joined the Turbine drawing office of the Brush Electrical Co., Ltd., Loughborough, engaged at first on minor detail, later on more important parts. After attending an Institution of Mechanical Engineers Meeting in Zurich, in November 1911 Bumpus left for America where he was employed by the Westinghouse Machine Co., in Pittsburgh. Following the outbreak of WWI, he returned to the UK and enlisted as a sapper in the Royal Navy on 3 October 1914, joining the Royal Marines Divisional Engineers: Deal battalion. He received a Temporary Commission in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve with the rank of Lieutenant in March 1915 and was assigned ‘D’ Section of the Air Department. Transferred to the Air Board on 1 March 1917, he was posted as the resident Air Board representative at Blackburn Aircraft, Leeds during the remainder of the war, with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Following the formation of the RAF, Bumpus transferred to the new service, firstly as Captain then promoted to Major at the end of November 1918. Transferred to the unemployed list on 1 April 1919, he stayed on with Blackburn to become chief designer and, in 1919, was made joint managing director with Robert Blackburn. He was responsible for all of Blackburn’s landplane designs up to the Nautilus of 1929.

With the establishment of a new works at Dumbarton in 1937, Blackburn transferred their entire flying boat section there, with Bumpus assuming the role of chief engineer at the new location.

With the formation of Blackburn and General Aircraft Ltd. in February 1949, H.V. Gort and Captain Norman William George Blackburn (b. 25 May 1896 in Leeds, Yorkshire - d. 27 January 1966 in Bridlington, Yorkshire) became joint managing directors in place of Robert Blackburn and Major Bumpus, with Bumpus remaining as managing director of Blackburn Aircraft (Dumbarton). However. H.V. Gort and Norman Blackburn ceased as joint managing directors in August of 1950, being replaced by Bumpus as acting managing director, himself replaced by Eric Turner in May of 1951.

Frank Arnold Bumpus BSc, ARCS, WhSc, FRAeS, died on 6 April 1980 in Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, Scotland.

1. Blackburn Aircraft Since 1909, A.J. Jackson (Putnam, 1968 and 1989)
2. ancestry.co.uk