Noel Pemberton Billing (sometimes hyphenated as Noel Pemberton-Billing) (1881 – 11 November 1948) was an English aviator, inventor, publisher, and Member of Parliament. He founded the firm that became Supermarine and promoted air power, but he held a strong antipathy towards the Royal Aircraft Factory and its products. He was notorious during the First World War for his his extreme right-wing views and his homophobic conspiracy theories, which eventually led to a sensational libel trial.
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Born in Hampstead, a residential suburb in north London, Billing ran away from home at the age of 14 and travelled to South Africa. After trying a number of occupations, he joined the mounted police and became a boxer. He fought in the Second Boer War, but was invalided out.
Billing then returned to England and used his savings to open a garage in Kingston upon Thames. This was successful, but he became more interested in aviation, which was then in its infancy. An attempt to open an aerodrome in Essex failed, so he started a short-lived career in property, while studying to become a lawyer. He passed his exams, but instead moved into selling steam yachts. He bet Frederick Handley Page that he could earn his pilot's licence within 24 hours of first sitting in a plane. He won his bet, gaining licence number 683 and £500, equivalent to more than £28 000 in 2010[1], which he used to found an aircraft business, Pemberton-Billing Ltd, with Hubert Scott-Paine as works manager, in 1913. Billing registered the telegraphic address Supermarine, Southampton for the company, which soon acquired premises at Oakbank Wharf in Woolston, Southampton and started construction of his flying boat designs. Financial difficulties soon set in, but the onset of World War I revived the fortunes of the business.
In 1914, Billing was called up to the Royal Navy, where he organised an aircraft raid on Zeppelin sheds near Lake Constance. He was able to sell his share in the aviation firm to Scott-Paine in early 1916, who renamed the firm Supermarine Aviation Works Limited after the company's telegraphic address. Leo McKinstry credits Billing as the founder of Supermarine in Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend[2].
As a man of means, Billing contested the Mile End by-election as an independent candidate in 1916, but was not successful. He then contested and won another by-election in Hertford. He held the seat at the 1918 general election and retained his East Hertfordshire seat until 1923[3].
During World War I he was notable for his support of air power, constantly accusing the government of neglecting the issue and advocating the creation of a separate air force, unattached to either the army or navy. During the so-called "Fokker scourge" of late 1915 and early 1916, he became particularly vocal against the Royal Aircraft Factory and its products, raising the question in typically exaggerated terms once he entered Parliament. His prejudice against the Factory and its products persisted, and was very influential. He called for air raids against German cities. In 1917 he published Air War and How to Wage it, which emphasised the future role of raids on cities and the need to develop protective measures. His own eccentric quadraplane design for a home defence fighter, known as the "Nighthawk", was built in prototype but had far too feeble a performance to be of any use as an interceptor.
Billing took the view that homosexuality was infiltrating and tainting English society, and that this was linked to German espionage in the context of World War I.[2] He founded a journal, Imperialist, in which he wrote an article based on information provided by Harold Sherwood Spencer which claimed that the Germans were blackmailing "47,000 highly placed British perverts"[4] to "propagate evils which all decent men thought had perished in Sodom and Lesbia." The names were said to be inscribed in the "Berlin Black Book" of the "Mbret of Albania". The contents of this book revealed that the Germans planned on "exterminating the manhood of Britain" by luring men into homosexual acts. "Even to loiter in the streets was not immune. Meretricious agents of the Kaiser were stationed at such places as Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner. In this black book of sin details were given of the unnatural defloration of children...wives of men in supreme positions were entangled. In Lesbian ecstasy the most sacred secrets of the state were threatened".[5] He publicly attacked Margot Asquith, wife of the prime minister, hinting that she was caught up in this. He also targeted members of the circle around Robbie Ross, the literary executor of Oscar Wilde, who supported and introduced homosexual poets and writers.
Billing's journal was then renamed Vigilante, and published a second article, "The Cult of the Clitoris". This implied that the actress Maud Allan, then appearing in a private production of Salome organised by Ross, was a lesbian associate of the conspirators. This led to a sensational libel case, at which Billing represented himself and won. Lord Alfred Douglas, a former lover of Oscar Wilde, testified in Billing's favour. Billing's victory in this case created significant popular publicity, and he was re-elected to parliament in the next election.
After 1921, Billing suffered increasingly from health problems, which led to his eventual resignation from the House of Commons and retirement from politics in 1923. However, he continued to remain active writing literary works and producing films. In 1927, Billing wrote a play, High Treason, inspired by Fritz Lang's film Metropolis. It was a sci-fi drama about pacifism set in a future 1950, when a "United States of Europe" comes into conflict with the "Empire of the Atlantic States". In 1929 Maurice Elvey made a film of the play, using the same title. It was released in two versions, one silent and the other an early "talkie"[6], but neither proved successful.
In 1941 Billing attempted to return to politics, seeking to replicate his success during World War I as a critic of the conduct of the war. He advocated the defeat of Germany by bombing alone, and the defence of Britain by a system of spaced light-beams directed upwards, which would confuse enemy bombers. Billing also proposed a post-war reform of the British constitution, arguing that general elections should be abolished in favour of a rolling programme of by-elections and that a new second chamber should be created, appointed from representatives of trades and professions. He also argued that there should be a separate "Women's parliament" dedicated to "domestic" matters.[7] He stood in four by-elections, most notably in Hornsey. However, he was unable to take any seats.
In 1922, Billing patented a recording system intended to produce records with ten times the capacity of existing systems, but its complexity prevented popular uptake; it depended on a progressive gearing system which reduced the rotational speed of the record as it played, so that the linear speed at which the recorded groove passed the needle remained constant. A further musical invention, the "unbreakable record", was marketed by Duophone in 1925, but failed to take off, as it rapidly wore out needles.
In 1936, Billing designed the miniature "Le Coultre Compass" camera. In 1948, he devised the "Phantom" camera to be used by spies. It never entered production, but its rarity led one to sell for £120,000, a record price for any camera, in 2001.
Shortly before World War II, Billing claimed to have invented an uncrewed flying bomb, but the design was not pursued.
Novelist Pat Barker's award-winning World War I trilogy - Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road - was set against the backdrop of the Billing campaigns against homosexuality, with several characters mentioning his ominous black book. The middle novel, in particular, deals with the psychiatric treatment of soldiers torn between patriotism and pacifism, and between homosexuality and heterosexuality.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by Sir John Fowke Lancelot Rolleston |
Member of Parliament for Hertford 1916–1921 |
Succeeded by Murray Sueter |
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