RANDWICK CITY LIBRARY & INFORMATION SERVICE

WACKETT'S WIDGEON

Lawrence Wackett was one of twelve qualified pilots with whom Australia entered the First World War. An accomplished pilot and innovative engineer, Wackett was by 1917, promoted from active duty to supervise repairs and design new planes for the Royal Air Force. When he returned to Australia in 1921, Wackett argued that an air force dependent on imported planes and parts was a danger to our defence network, and he pressured superiors to allow his experimental work to continue. Revamping a disused factory on army property on the corner of Frenchmans Road and Avoca Street, Wackett set to work with a team of army personnel and some civilian experts who had come to Australia to work with aviator Nigel Love at Mascot. Wackett and his team designed and built the Wackett Widgeon 1, a coastal reconnaissance seaplane commissioned by the Department of Civil Aviation. The eventual success of Widgeon 1 and subsequent planes convinced the Royal Australian Air Force of Wackett's worth.

Wackett Widgeon 1 flying boat, 1924.

Pressure from British manufacturers, who saw Wackett as a threat to their monopoly on Australian orders, and a subsequent decision by Treasury to stop funding Wackett's project caused the closure of the Randwick factory in the early 1930s. Wackett left the air force in disgust and joined the ranks of Sydney's unemployed during the Depression. His factory, which had seen so many advances, fell once more into disrepair. Wackett's talents were finally put to work by a private investor who saw potential for an Australian aeronautical industry. When the first Australian planes came off the production line in the Second World War to compensate for Britain's failure to supply, they came from his privately funded Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, based in Melbourne.

Backed up from: http://www.randwick.nsw.gov.au/Library/localhistory/sochist7.htm