Frederick Handley Page and his company based in Barking, Essex, produced the Handley Page bomber in 1916. Later that year in November, the Handley Page carried out their first large-scale bombing raids on enemy military installations and submarine bases.

By 1918 Handley Page had produced a four-engine bomber that could attack the industrial zones of the Saar and the Ruhr in Germany. In the last months of the war they began using a new giant 1,650 pound (748 kg) bomb. When the Armistice was signed the Royal Air Force had 258 Handley Page aircraft on active service. After the war some of these aircraft were modified for passenger transport.