Charles Benjamin Redrup

Charles Redrup was interested in engineering from an early age and his father paid for him to take an apprenticeship with the Great Western Railway company for a five-year period.

He started his married life in the aforementioned parental-gifted house and by 1925 Charles and Jessie Redrup had a family of eight.

[6] Redrup carried out most of his development work in a simply-equipped home workshop, and often said that he made most of his engines with little more than "a knife and fork".

A variant of the engine also flew in a Simmonds Spartan aircraft in 1929, and was exhibited at the Olympia Air Show in July of that year.

It was originally conceived as a power unit for buses, possibly because its compact format would allow it to be installed beneath the vehicle's floor.

[7] During World War II he worked on top-secret armament projects for the Avro Lancaster and other aircraft, including the hydraulic drive for the Vickers Type 464 bouncing bomb which was used in Operation Chastise in 1943.