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Gas Turbine Collaboration Committee, Welcombe Hotel, c. 1944
"I suppose that the most effective instrument in my jet propulsion development work was the Gas Turbine Collaboration Committee which I created in 1941. It held its first meeting in October of that year in the Midland Hotel in Birmingham. The situation was, that after the successful maiden flight of the E28/39, the interest of the aircraft engine industry was increased and several aircraft engine firms wanted to embrace the technology which Whittle had created. They all had ideas but hesitated to share them with Whittle or each other. I pointed out that if a firm patented any obvious extension of the technology it could safely share it with the others and that by sharing and discussing advances the whole technology would develop faster. This was understood and the Gas Turbine Collaboration Committee was a notable success. Meetings were held at the premises of the collaborators who were Power Jets, Metropolitan-Vickers, de Havillands (Halford), Ricardo, Bristol, Armstrong-Siddeley, and Rolls Royce, the last of which took the greatest advantage of the arrangement and in the end benefited most. Surprisingly, the Committee remained in existence for three years after the end of the war". [From A Wrack Behind by Lord Kings Norton].