Catalogue description Records of the Aircraft Torpedo Development Unit and Projectile Development Establishment and successors

The Aircraft Torpedo Development Unit was established by the Air Ministry at Gosport in 1921 to undertake the development of aerial torpedoes and mines and the means of carrying them and of delivering them from aircraft. It worked exclusively for the Air Ministry until 1942, when control passed to the Ministry of Aircraft Production and it thereafter carried out work both for the Royal Air Force Force and the Royal Naval Air Service. The unit was passed to the Ministry of Supply control in 1946.

The Projectile Development Establishment's first director was Dr A D Crow, who had been Director of Ballistic Research at the War Office. The establishment moved from Halstead in Kent to Aberporth in Cardiganshire in 1940. After the end of the war in 1945 work on rocket research and development was continued at the renamed Guided Projectile Establishment at Westcott, Buckinghamshire, renamed the Rocket Propulsion Establishment in 1958.

Both the Aircraft Torpedo Development Unit and Rocket Propulsion Establishment became the responsibility of the Ministry of Aviation in 1959. When the ministry was abolished in 1967 control passed to the Ministry of Technology and then to the Ministry of Aviation Supply in 1970.