Frederick George Miles was born on 22 March 1903 in Worthing Sussex, the oldest of four sons of Frederick Gaston Miles, a laundry proprietor of the Star Model Laundry, Portslade-by-Sea, and his wife Esther (née Wicks). He initially went to a private infant’s school in Worthing, then St. Nicholas Church School in Portslade from ages 7 to 11. This was followed by East Hove Secondary School, where, after a somewhat patchy education, he left in 1916.

His first employment was as a mechanic-projectionist at a local cinema, then a similar role at the larger Queens cinema in Hove. In partnership with another young man, he next owned a very run-down cinema, the Majestic, in Kemptown. With the end of WWI and the return of his father from the war, business resumed at the laundry and Miles drove laundry vans during the day as well as continuing with the cinema venture of an evening.

Miles’s uncle having acquired a war surplus Ford ambulance, Miles set about converting it and hired it out with himself as driver. As a sideline, with a friend he rebuilt old motorcycles in his father’s stables, renting them out at a few shillings an hour. He also started a small team wiring house and opened an electrical shop in Boundary Road, Hove. To follow this, they decided to build a sports three wheeler. By this time Miles had met ex-RAF pilot Frederick Wallis, who helped out on the car, but also sparked Miles’ interest in aviation. Sometime in 1922 he took a 5-shilling joyride, leading to the decision to scrap the car and build an aeroplane instead.

Along with his brother Dennis and a few friends, Miles designed, then built a small biplane called the Gnat, utilising the ash and spruce from the three-wheeler project to provide longerons and ribs. Unfortunately, the project was never finished.

Wallis introduced Miles to local pilot Cecil Pashley, who he persuaded to become a partner in a proposed aviation business, and the Gnat Aero and Motor Company was formed in April 1925, with financing provided by Miles’ father. Pashley owned an Avro 504K, G-EATU, which was flown to Sussex and then dismantled and taken to Miles’ workshop (still in the laundry stables) for complete overhaul.

Miles leased a field and near derelict barn at Shoreham that had once been home to the Sussex County Aero Club, and the Avro was moved there, where they operated a flying school and joyriding business. At the liquidation of Grahame-White’s effects on 16 February 1926, a GW.15 Boxkite and a GWE.6 Bantam were acquired, and in May two Central Centaur F4s were obtained for the sum of £30 each.

Pashley taught Miles to fly the formers Avro 504K G-EATU, first flying solo in the Avro on 19 May 1926, gaining his RAeC Aviator’s Certificate (No 8003) on 15 June 1926, flying a Central Centaur (probably G-EALL). The company moved into new premises, Shoreham Aerodrome, in June 1926, where Miles, Pashley and Wallis formed the Southern Aero Club.

On 16 May 1927, the joyriding side of the business, the Gnat Aero Company, was formally incorporated as the Gnat Aero Company, Ltd. with a share capital of £1,500. The first directors were F.G. Miles, C.L. Pashley and Mile’s father, F. Gaston Miles. That same year, Avro closed their premises at Hamble and Miles purchased a number of airframes. One of these, Avro Baby G-EAUM, was modified by Miles by replacing its 35 h.p Green with a 60 h.p Cirrus, his first endeavour at design, though for the most part all changes were more empirical than analytical.

With the Gnat Aero Company expanding into aircraft repairs and production, the company was renamed Southern Aircraft Ltd. Lionel Edward Richard Bellairs (b. 31 Oct 1905 St George Hanover Square, London - d. 1 Jan 1971 Torquay, Devon), a Southern Aero Club member and director of the new company, wanted a single seat aerobatic aeroplane of his own. Starting with one of the Avro Babys the he had purchased from Hamble, Miles produced the Hornet Baby, though little but metal fittings from the Baby was eventually used. Renamed the Southern Martlet, this became Miles first production aircraft, first flying on 10 July 1929.

In June 1930, The Hon Inigo Freeman-Thomas (Viscount Ratendone from February 1931), and his wife Maxine, came to Shoreham to learn to fly. Eventually Miles was to have an affair with Maxine; to remove himself from the difficult situation, in August 1931 he emigrated to South Africa. However, his time in South Africa was short; about to be prosecuted for dangerous flying (he had flown over the local flying club with the aircraft’s wheels running along the corrugated iron roof!), he hastily returned to England, arriving in Southampton on 24 September 1931 aboard the SS Windsor Castle.

Miles and Maxine, or Blossom as she was always known, purchased a caravan and set up home in a farmer’s field near Sevenoaks. Blossom was a very talented woman, and together they rented a small room over a shop to use as a drawing office, and together designed a single-seat biplane in 1932 (the Miles M.1 Satyr), which was built for them by George Parnall and Co of Yate, Gloucestershire, for whom Miles had done some flight testing in 1929 and again after his return from South Africa. Meanwhile, Viscount Ratendone had divorced Blossom in April that year, and on 6 August 1932 she and Miles were married at Holburn Registry Office.

In 1932, most likely on 25 August, Miles met Charles Powis, a motor engineer and owner of the aircraft business Phillips and Powis Aircraft Ltd, based at Woodley Aerodrome, Woodley near Reading, and discussed the idea of a cheap, but modern light monoplane. Miles and Blossom had probably already begun the design, which materialised as the Miles Hawk, to be built by Phillips and Powis at Woodley. The Hawk sold well and Miles joined the company as technical director and chief designer. Miles and Blossom moved to Reading, where they set up a drawing office in part of the Phillips and Powis hanger.

In 1935, the Phillips and Powis became a public company, and by December that year Miles was envisioning a new high-performance trainer to match the performance of the RAF’s upcoming fighters. As the intended powerplant was to be the Rolls-Royce Kestrel, he approached that company for assistance, and Rolls-Royce Limited become a major shareholder on 6 April 1936. That same year, Miles and Blossom moved into ‘Land’s End House’, Beggars Hill Road, Lands’ End, Twyford, an Art Deco style house designed for them by architect Guy Morgan.

1936 saw Phillips and Powis’ first RAF order, with the first of many contracts for the M.14 Magister, a derivative of the M.2 Hawk, being awarded on 4 November 1936. Miles’ vision of a high-performance trainer resulted in the M.9 Kestrel which first flew on 5 June 1937, and his faith was rewarded with an order for 500 of the improved M.9B Master on 11 June 1938.

On 10 July 1937, primarily for personal reasons, Charles Powis tendered his resignation, and Miles, along with Lt. Colonel Ormonde Darby, Rolls-Royce’s representative on the board, were made joint Managing Directors in his place.

Rolls-Royce lost interest in the company and in 1941, Miles bought financial control of the company on 12 March 1941, via a loan of £60,000 from the Amalgamated Roadstone Corporation, whose chairman, W.H. Gatty Saunt, joined the board, alongside Miles, Blossom and George Miles. The company was renamed Miles Aircraft Limited 5 October 1943. Miles and his wife also started the Miles Aeronautical School to train apprentice technicians and draughtsman.

In 1943, Miles was shown a prototype ballpoint pen made by László József Bíró (29 September 1899 – 24 October 1985) and offered to produce them for the Royal Air Force. The ministry was concerned that it would distract from aircraft production but Miles eventually persuaded government officials to let him use 17 unskilled women to produce the Biro pen, which was the world's first commercially successful ballpoint pen. At the end of the war, the Reading biro factory which would employ 700 people, became the Miles Martin Pen Company and the Biro was sold to the general public.

With his brother now Chief Designer for aircraft, Miles concentrated on a design for a supersonic aircraft (the M.52) powered by the then secret Whittle jet engine. The government contract and the programme was cancelled in 1946. Data from this project was shared with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA – later to become NASA), also at work on supersonic aircraft designs during this period.

Problems with the return to civil production, along with some underhand machinations of the company’s financial advisor, led to the collapse of Miles Aircraft in late 1947. On 21 March 1950, following an investigation by the Board of Trade, Miles and Sir William Malcolm Mount, Bt. (former financial executive of the company) were formally committed for trial at Marylebone Magistrates' Court, the Old Bailey on summonses under the Prevention of Fraud (Investment) Act 1939. Bail of £500 was set in each case. The charges arose from alleged concealment of facts and misleading statements made in a share prospectus concerning the manufacture of Aerovan, Merchantman and other aircraft. Both men were later acquitted.

Undeterred, on 4 December 1948, Miles started a new company, F.G. Miles Ltd, at Redhill, and in 1952 moved back to Shoreham, along with its subsidiary engineering companies Miles Marine and Structural Plastics and Miles Electronics, the latter involved with flight simulators. In 1961, the aviation interests of the company became part of the new Beagle Group and Miles became the deputy chairman and his brother, chief designer. Also in the sixties, Miles and Blossom set up home in Cudlow House, Rustington; this had been home of the Llewelyn Davies family, who inspired J. M. Barrie to write the Peter Pan story, and threw many parties in the gardens.

The Beagle group collapsed in 1969, but the non-aviation side of the F. G. Miles group continued. In 1965, Miles Marine and Structural Plastics Ltd produced the steel tube fuselage S.E.5a reproductions for the 20th Century Fox film “The Blue Max”.

In 1975, Hunting Associated Industries acquired a controlling interest in F. G. Miles and all its subsidiaries. The company was renamed Hunting Hivolt and Jeremy Miles, the son of F. G. Miles, became a non-executive director on the board.

Frederick George Miles died on 15 August 1976 in Worthing, Sussex.

Biography References

1. Wikipedia
2. ancestry.com
3. Miles Aircraft - The Early Years, Peter Amos (Air Britain (Historians), 2009)
4. Miles Aircraft - The Wartime Years, Peter Amos (Air Britain (Historians), 2012)
5. Miles Aircraft - The Post-War Years, Peter Amos (Air Britain (Historians), 2016)