Fairmile Marine was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 boat building company founded in 1939 by the car manufacturer Noel Macklin

Noel Macklin

Sir Noel Campbell Macklin was an innovative British car maker and boat designer. He was also the father of post-war sports car and Formula One racing driver Lance Macklin....

.

Macklin used the garage at his home at Cobham Fairmile

Cobham, Surrey

Cobham is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, about south-west of central London and north of Leatherhead. Elmbridge has been acclaimed by the Daily Mail as the best place to live in the UK, and Cobham is a prosperous part of the London commuter belt...

 in Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

 for manufacturing assembly which is why the boats he designed came to be called Fairmiles.

As a former Royal Horse Artillery

Royal Horse Artillery

The regiments of the Royal Horse Artillery , dating from 1793, are part of the Royal Regiment of Artillery of the British Army...

 and Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve officer he was inspired to turn his talents and his technical staff to producing boats after reading an article by Vice-Admiral Cecil Vivian Usborne

Cecil Vivian Usborne

Vice-Admiral Cecil Vivian Usborne was a high ranking officer in the British Royal Navy. He served as the Director of Naval Intelligence and retired Vice-Admiral and later a Member of Parliament....

.

After his first designs were accepted and ordered by the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 Macklin found he had insufficient capital

Financial capital

Financial capital can refer to money used by entrepreneurs and businesses to buy what they need to make their products or provide their services or to that sector of the economy based on its operation, i.e. retail, corporate, investment banking, etc....

. To solve the problem the Fairmile company became an agency of the Admiralty with Usborne as one of the directors. As a result the company carried out business without turning a profit, the staff being in effect part of the civil service.

Boats designed

Class	Type	Designation	Built	Number built	Penant numbers
Fairmile A Fairmile A motor launch The Fairmile A motor launch was a type of Motor Launch designed by Fairmile Marine for the Royal Navy.Shortly before the Second World War the British industrialist Noel Macklin submitted to the Admiralty an innovative plan for the series production of a motor launch...	Motor Launch Motor Launch A Motor Launch is a small military vessel in British navy service. It was designed for harbour defence and submarine chasing or for armed high speed air-sea rescue....	ML	1940	12	ML 100 to ML 111
Fairmile B Fairmile B motor launch The Fairmile B motor launch was a type of Motor Launch built by Fairmile Marine during the Second World War for the Royal Navy for coastal operations.-Design:...	Motor Launch Motor Launch A Motor Launch is a small military vessel in British navy service. It was designed for harbour defence and submarine chasing or for armed high speed air-sea rescue.... Air Sea Rescue	ML ASR	1940-42 1940-45	616 668
Fairmile C Fairmile C motor gun boat The Fairmile C motor gun boat was a type of Motor Gun Boat designed by Norman Hart of Fairmile Marine for the Royal Navy. An intermediate design, twenty-four boats were built in 1941 receiving the designations MGB 312 - 335.-Design:...	Motor Gun Boat Motor Gun Boat Motor Gun Boat was a Royal Navy term for a small military vessel of the Second World War. They were physically similar to the Motor Torpedo Boats but equipped with a mix of guns instead of torpedoes. Their small size and high speed made them difficult targets for E-boats or torpedo bombers, but...	MGB	1940-41	24	MGB 312 - MGB 335
Fairmile D Fairmile D motor torpedo boat The Fairmile D motor torpedo boat was a type of British Motor Torpedo Boat designed by Bill Holt and conceived by Fairmile Marine for the Royal Navy....	Motor Gun Boat Motor Gun Boat Motor Gun Boat was a Royal Navy term for a small military vessel of the Second World War. They were physically similar to the Motor Torpedo Boats but equipped with a mix of guns instead of torpedoes. Their small size and high speed made them difficult targets for E-boats or torpedo bombers, but... MGB / MTB Motor Torpedo Boat Motor Torpedo Boat Motor Torpedo Boat was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy.The capitalised term is generally used for the Royal Navy boats and abbreviated to "MTB"...	MGB MGB / MTB MTB	1942-43 1942-43 1943-44	95 229 134
Fairmile F	Motor Torpedo Boat Motor Torpedo Boat Motor Torpedo Boat was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy.The capitalised term is generally used for the Royal Navy boats and abbreviated to "MTB"...	MTB	1944	One (experimental)
Fairmile H Fairmile H landing craft The Fairmile H Landing Craft were British landing craft of the Second World War. Initially designed for commando type raids from a base in Britain as a way of probing enemy defenses and tying down additional troops, some were converted into fire support vessels.Two variants were developed:The...	Landing Craft Infantry Landing Craft Infantry The Landing craft, Infantry or LCI were several classes of sea-going amphibious assault ships of the Second World War utilized to land large numbers of infantry directly onto beaches. They were developed in response to a British request for a vessel capable of carrying and landing substantially... Landing Craft Support	LCI (S) LCS (L)		40 10	501-540 251-260

See also

• Vospers
  Vosper & Company
  Vosper & Company, often referred to simply as Vospers, was a British shipbuilding company based in Portsmouth, England.-History:The Company was established in 1871 by Herbert Edward Vosper, concentrating on ship repair and refitting work....
  
  
• British Power Boat Company
  British Power Boat Company
  The British Power Boat Company was a British manufacturer of motor boats, particularly racing boats and later military patrol boats.It was formed on 30 September 1927 when Hubert Scott-Paine bought and renamed the Hythe Shipyard with the intention of transforming it into one of the most modern mass...
  
  
• British Coastal Forces of World War II

External links

• The Fairmile Company
• Model kit catalogue
• The Fairmile Bs of the Royal Canadian Navy