Index Page

These pages represent the start of an on-line history of the village of Whetstone, near Leicester. It is hoped that much more material will become available as time goes on.

For a comparison project see the Stoney Stanton Village History Project.

The pages have been set out so that they can be viewed consequtively using the next and previous links below.

Sir Frank Whittle

In 1942 the new factory on Cambridge Rd Whetstone was testing and manufacturing jet engines. To Frank Whittle this was the culmination of 12 years work since first designing and patenting his design.

It had been a long and frustrating 12 years, at first nobody believed it would work and in the early 1930`s with Britain in industrial depression, money was not forthcoming. By 1936 however a little money had been found, enough to start a small company Power Jets Ltd. With the onset of WW2 the government, realising at last the potential of an aircraft that could fly 200 times faster than a Spitfire, commissioned the site in Whetstone. The Meteor jet did enter service towards the end of the 2nd world war. Today there is little indication that the Whetstone site played such a significant role in what has now become an everyday part of our lives, though most of the original buildings still stand and hopefully will continue to be a living memorial to one of the 20th century`s greatest engineers Sir Frank Whittle 1907-1996

Neil Pegg