No. 34: From Hamilton to de Havilland and Beyond

The rich tapestry of Canadian aviation history is interwoven with images from the hand of a Hamiltonian who held Civil Air Board License No. 34.

No less a respected aviation author than Fred Hotson credits Capt. William Roy Maxwell with being instrumental in persuading de Havilland to establish manufacturing facilities in Canada in 1928. Although this singular contribution may be the high water mark of the many contributions that Roy Maxwell made during the formative years of Air Transport in Canada, it is far from his only contribution to the Canadian industrial landscape.

This monograph is the outcome of a presentation made by the author to the Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society held in Hamilton, Ontario June, 2015.

The theme and the framework of the rich visual material presented to that august gathering will be reflected both in the organization and the scope of this print project.

The task and overall objective is to illustrate the exceedingly wide breadth and the extensive scope of the contributions to Civil Aviation and to Canadian industry that arose from the aviation career of Capt. Wm. Roy Maxwell in the twenty year period of 1919 to 1939. Not to be overlooked is the fact that this fascinating career was book ended by enlistment in the RFC/RAF in WW1 and then by enlistment in the RCAF in WWII.

To this day, Roy Maxwell has not received the recognition that he so richly deserves for his many outstanding and unheralded aviation accomplishments!

If this modest volume, the fourth in a series of publications on the life and aviation career of Roy Maxwell, serves in some small way to rekindle an interest in the minds of present day aviation historians in the several highly significant aviation accomplishment achieved by a man who for the most part has been confined to the dungeons of our collective memories, then the undertaking will generate its own reward,