He was the eighth child and only son of Thomas Sopwith (a civil engineer and managing director of the Spanish Lead Mines Company in Linares, Jaén, Spain) and his wife, Lydia Gertrude Messiter.

[3] On 30 July 1898, when he was ten years old and on a family holiday at the Isle of Lismore near Oban in Scotland, a gun lying across young Thomas's knee went off, killing his father.

[6] He was also a member of the Great Britain national ice hockey team that won the gold medal at the first European Championships in 1910.

He crashed after travelling about 300 yards (275 m), but soon improved, and on 22 November was awarded Royal Aero Club Aviation Certificate No.

On 18 December 1910, Sopwith won the £4000 Baron de Forest Prize for the longest flight from England to the Continent in a British-built aeroplane, flying 169 miles (272 km) in 3 hours 40 minutes.

[8] On 24 October 1912 using a Wright Model B completely rebuilt by Sopwith and fitted with an ABC 40 hp engine,[9] Harry Hawker took the British Michelin Endurance prize with a flight of 8h 23m.

Sopwith Aviation got its first military aircraft order in November 1912, and in December moved to larger premises in Canbury Park Road, Kingston upon Thames.

A small section of the original building still exists at the junction of Elm Crescent and Canbury Park Road; white painted bay windows can be seen extending from the building to allow as much light as possible to enter the large room in which Sopwith made blueprints for his aircraft designs.

The company produced more than 18,000 World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5747 of the Sopwith Camel single-seat fighter.

Bankrupted after the war by punitive anti-profiteering taxes and a failed venture into motorcycle manufacturing, he re-entered the aviation business in 1920 with a new firm named after his chief engineer and test pilot, Harry Hawker.

In the Second World War the ship was requisitioned by the Royal Navy and used as a convoy escort vessel, HMS Philante.

[14] Sopwith's 100th birthday was marked by a flypast of military aircraft over his home, Compton Manor in King's Somborne, Hampshire.

[citation needed] A bronze bust of Sopwith was unveiled by his son at Kingston Library, London, on 26 September 2014.