With the death of Sir George in 1916, his son, known as Sir Stanley White, took over as Director. He steered the company through 2 world wars.s
So it really wasn't very long before my Grandfather found himself plunged into war work and things changed dramatically. Of course war was declared 1914, and my great Grandfather who clearly wasn't well during that period, his heart problems were getting worse, I have his diary for his last year. It's only his business diary and it just jots his appointments, but he was spending a lot of time at home and in bed, that kind of thing. So my Grandfather was really having to take over from him. In 1916, he died, at the height of the war, and so Grandfather really went from the pioneering stage to producing aircraft in very large numbers for the war, very quickly. It must have taught him a great deal. Of course one has to bear in mind that he continued as managing director until 1954, so he not only saw the company through the first World War and the ghastly after affects of the war finishing in industrial terms, and the second World War, when again, by the end of the first World War I believe he was employing about 4,000 people, within a fortnight of the armistice, the government cancelled all government contracts. So there he was with a very large factory, with 4,000 working for him, an awful lot of women, of course, working for him because they men had gone abroad. It was his responsibility to find some work for them. He did take that very seriously.