Roe, (Edwin) Alliot Verdon (1877–1958)

English aircraft designer, the first Briton to construct and fly an aeroplane, in 1908. He designed the Avro series of aircraft from 1912.

Roe was born in Patricroft, near Manchester, was apprenticed to a railway company, then entered the motor industry. He became interested in aircraft design, and his biplane flew a distance of 23 m/75 ft nearly a year before the first officially recognized flight in England by John Moore-Brabazon (1884–1964). In 1910 Roe founded the firm of A V Roe and Company, manufacturing aircraft, but in 1928 he left the firm and turned his attention to the design of flying boats. He founded the Saunders–Roe Company based on the Isle of Wight.

The first aircraft from the Manchester works was the Avro 500, one of the first machines to be ordered for use by the British army. Two of these formed the strength of the Central Flying School of the Royal Flying Corps.

In 1913 the company produced its first seaplane, a large biplane known as the Avro 503. The Avro 504, also 1913, was considerably in advance of its contemporaries, and would be used for decades of safe flying instruction. Although not basically a military aircraft, it was used extensively in World War I. Many modifications followed; the 504H was the first aircraft to be successfully launched by catapult.