A pusher biplane based on the successful Farman III, it was one of the first aircraft types to be built in quantity.

The original intention of Sir George White, the founder and chairman of Bristol Aircraft, was to build licensed copies of the Zodiac biplane, designed by Gabriel Voisin.

[1] One example of this design was imported from France and exhibited by Bristol at the 1910 Aero show in London in March 1910, and afterwards taken to Brooklands for flight testing.

A single brief flight on 28 May was achieved by Maurice Edmond, but after an accident that damaged its undercarriage on 10 June it was abandoned, as was work on five more examples being built at Bristol's factory at Filton.

[2] Sir George was advised to acquire rights to build copies of the successful Farman biplane.

[3] The first example was constructed in a matter of weeks, using some components from the abandoned production Zodiacs, and was delivered to the company's flying school at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain, where it was first flown on 30 July 1910, piloted by Maurice Edmond.

[4] Farman sued Bristol for patent infringement, but the company's lawyers claimed substantial design improvements in matters of constructional detail, and the lawsuit was dropped.

This arrangement was inherited from the Zodiac,[6] being necessary in that aircraft because the front spar of the wing did not also form the leading edge.

It was tested at Larkhill in February 1912, but was evidently unsuccessful since it was soon rebuilt as a standard Boxkite and was to crash in November 1912.

In September a third aircraft was completed and delivered to Larkhill, and both the Larkill machines participated in the Army manoeuvres held on Salisbury Plain that month.

8 was flown by Bertram Dickson, and was captured by Blue team cavalry when it landed in order to report by telephone,[10] and No.

Temporary hangars were built on Durdham Down and although flying was limited by the weather conditions a crowd of almost 10,000 saw Maurice Tetard make a fifteen-minute flight on the Saturday.

At about half-past three it was announced that there would be no more flying, despite which Tetard then made a short straight-line flight reaching no more than 20 ft in altitude, earning a "cheery ovation" from the crowd by then numbering around 12,000.

[13] On 14 March 1911 the British War Office ordered four Boxkites for the planned Air Battalion Royal Engineers,[a] the first production contract for military aircraft for Britain's armed forces.

[16] Four more Boxkites were purchased by the RFC from the Bristol flying school at Brooklands following the outbreak of the First World War; the last of these was written off in February 1915.

[17] The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) also made use of the Boxkite as a trainer, using it at its training schools at Eastbourne, Eastchurch and Hendon until at least 1915.

10 was flown first by Joseph Hammond, who made the first aeroplane flight in West Australia from Belmont Park Racecourse on 3 January 1911.

11, still in its crate, was sold to W. E. Hart of Penrith, N.S.W, who used the aircraft to become the first Australian to gain a pilot's licence in Australia.

[8] No original Bristol Boxkites aeroplanes have survived, but three authentic flyable reproductions were built by the F. G. Miles group for the film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.

A Bristol Boxkite replica was constructed for the Australian Centenary of Military Aviation Air Show 2014.