personnel. As soon as the war was finished and the government demand for aircraft ceased some of the remaining aircraft companies tried to diversify into other activities but with limited success or simply closed down. For instance, Airco looked at car manufacture and was bought by the Daimler Company parent company Birmingham Small Arms whilst Martinsyde and Sopwith briefly tried motor cycles. By 1920 the British aerospace industry consisted of 28 aeroplane constructors and a dozen aero engine designers. However, much of their work was of a trivial nature and engine orders were so low that Rolls-Royce nearly left the aviation sector. The aviation industry was left with the core of pre-war producers and a few companies whose interest in aviation had been aroused. This latter category included companies such as the Norwich engineering firm Boulton & Paul, Westland Aircraft, the wartime offshoot of engine manufacturers Petters Ltd and Gloucestershire, later, Gloster Aircraft Company formed from Cheltenham-based luxury liner outfitters H. H. Martyn. Nonetheless there was still determination to stay particularly from the enthusiastic pioneers such de Havilland and Sopwith. As soon as Airco and Sopwith Aviation Company were declared bankrupt,(due to the Treasury demanding payment for excess profits) within months Tommy Sopwith and Geoffrey de Havilland both established new companies, H.G. Hawker Engineering later Hawker Aircraft and De Havilland Aircraft Company. Civil aviation The Government established a Civil Aerial Transport Committee (that included H.G. Wells and Tommy Sopwith) that reported in December 1918. Their key recommendation was that steps should be taken to foster civil aviation in order, in part, to maintain a manufacturing base that could supply the country's military needs. However, Government policy for civil aviation was, initially, according to the then Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, on 11 March 1920 in the House of Commons to let it "fly by itself……any attempt to support it artificially by floods of State money will not ever produce a really sound commercial aviation service which the public will use, and will impose a burden of an almost indefinite amount upon the Exchequer". Air transport companies were established in 1919–20, several of which were subsidiaries of aircraft manufacturers, such as Handley-Page, Airco and Blackburn Aircraft. A number of the companies failed or found themselves in difficulty, due to high operating cost, low demand that was also seasonal, high fares and heavily subsidised French competition and so it was