[2] After experimenting with model aeroplanes, he made flight trials in 1907–1908 with a full-size biplane at Brooklands, near Weybridge in Surrey,[3] and officially became the first Englishman to fly an all-British machine a year later, with a triplane, on the Walthamstow Marshes.

When he arrived in British Columbia he discovered that a slump in the silver market meant that there was little demand for surveyors, so he spent a year doing odd jobs, then returned to England.

He later tried to join the Royal Navy to study marine engineering at King's College London, but, although he passed the technical and mathematics papers, he was rejected for failing some of the general subjects.

Although there were other better-qualified candidates, Roe's enthusiasm for aviation impressed Charles Rolls, and Stanley Spooner who interviewed him, and he was given the job.

With the prize money and the use of stables at his brother's house in West Hill, Putney, he then began to build a full-size aeroplane, the Roe I Biplane, based on his winning model.

[6] After encountering problems with the management of Brooklands he moved his flight experiments to Walthamstow Marshes, where he rented space under a railway arch at the western end of the viaduct.

[9] He was a believer in monetary reform and thought it wrong that banks should be able to create money by "book entry" and charge interest on it when they lent it out.

[13] On 28 October 2011 a green plaque was unveiled by Wandsworth Council and members of the Verdon-Roe family at the site of Roe's first workshop at West Hill, Putney.