Event Details

In this virtual lecture Professor David Edgerton will survey British policy for British aviation after 1945 arguing that many really did believe that the UK’s future lay in leadership in aeronautics.

The RAF Museum and the Centre for War and Diplomacy are hosting in partnership an online lecture by Professor David Edgerton (King's College London), titled '"No more Concordes"? Aviation, industrial policy and the future of the British Nation, 1945-1980.'

The talk will take place online on 29 October 2020 at 18.00 BST and will be followed by a Q&A. It is free to attend and all are welcome, but registration is essential. Further details, and a registration link, are available on the RAF Museum website.

The lecture will look at the history of many big projects from the forties, such as the Brabazon and the Princess Flying Boat, down to the heaviest aircraft ever built in the UK, the Concorde itself, reflecting on the wider political, industrial and economic context, not least the fabled ‘White Heat’ of the supposed ‘scientific revolution’ the country was living through.

David Edgerton is Hans Rausing Professor of the History of Science and Technology and Professor of Modern British History at King´s College London. He taught at the University of Manchester before becoming the founding director of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Imperial College London. He joined King’s with the Centre on its transfer in August 2013. His first book was England and the Aeroplane (1991) and his most recent, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History, is out in paperback.