It is a small single-engined single-seat low-wing monoplane of wooden construction, normally powered by a six-cylinder de Havilland Gipsy Six piston engine.

During the second half of the 1930s Mew Gulls dominated air-racing in the UK, consistently recorded the fastest times until the outbreak of war stopped all civilian flying in late 1939.

Proprietary equipment such as engines, airscrews, spinners, instruments, undercarriage legs, wheels and tyres were generally common to all series.

Small manually-operated, split trailing-edge wing flaps were incorporated into the mainplanes, but were "...singularly ineffective even when fully extended".

[3] The prototype Mew Gull (construction number E.20), designated Type E.1, was fitted with a 165 hp (123 kW) Napier Javelin IA six-cylinder inverted inline engine and was first flown on 22 March 1934 by Edgar Percival.

It was temporarily fitted with a smaller 180 hp Régnier engine, again of the same form, to qualify for the Coupe Armand Esders of July 1935, a race of 1,046 miles from Deauville, France to Cannes and back.

The Mew Gull was flown by Guy de Chateaubrun, the Percival representative in France, and averaged 188 mph (303 km/h) to win the race.

G-AEKL was sold and re-engined and modified to enter in the 1936 Schlesinger Race from England to South Africa 6,154 mi (9,904 km).

Ten days before the start, G-AEKL was involved in a fatal taxiing accident at Liverpool Speke Airport, in which Tom Campbell Black was killed and the aircraft was withdrawn from the race.

Progressively modified it, an engine-swap for another Gypsy Six Series II from the destroyed G-AEMO - moving the CG forward, and bracing-up main undercarriage with steel cables to reduce drag - a common practice at the time, and tuning the engine.

The aircraft was extensively modified by Essex Aero and fitted with a Gipsy Six R engine taken from de Havilland DH.88 Comet K5085 (formerly G-ACSS, the winner of the 1934 England-Australia air race).

Percival could have won, but as well as being made scratch-man by the handicappers, he also left the fine adjustment of his airscrew's pitch until just before the race; his ground-crew were still tinkering with it as Henshaw took off.

In February 1939, with G-AEXF re-engined yet again with a Gipsy Six II and with revised equipment, Henshaw set a new record for the out-and-home Cape class-record, which stood until 2009.

He took off on 5 February 1939 from Gravesend Airport, landing at Wingfield Aerodrome at the Cape the next day, covering the 6,377 miles course in 39 hours and 25 minutes, averaging 209.44 mph while in the air.

Eventually derelict, the wings were sawn off at Booker so that it could be transported to a poorly run museum, where it became damp, and many parts were lost to souvenir hunters.

In 2002, G-AEXF was sold to Rob Fleming and was operated by The Real Aeroplane Company at the Breighton Aerodrome, Yorkshire, England.

[9] Initially registered as G-AEMO but completed as ZS-AHO was another E2H powered by a Gipsy Six Series II engine, built to the order of S.S. "Stan" Halse for the Schlesinger Race.

Due to bad visibility, Halse made a forced landing in a ploughed field in Southern Rhodesia, where the aircraft flipped onto its back and was written off.

It replaced G-AEKL as Edgar Percival's personal mount and in the 1937 King's Cup air race he flew it to a third-place finish.

Henshaw commissioned it from AJD Engineering (Ipswich, UK), who had restored the original G-AEXF after a crash at Shuttleworth, to represent the aircraft in its record-breaking Cape configuration.