You may gather from the above that Frank Whittle was desperately trying to keep control of the detail design and development of his 'baby' and reacted furiously to Adrian Lombard's enthusiastic redesign of the B23. Whittle had originally adopted the reverse flow layout to achieve a short engine to minimize shaft whirling problems. Whittle himself had ideas for a future development of the engine with straight through combustor air flow but felt that the priority was to get Gloster some engines for the Gloster Meteor. He was upset both by Rover's team going behind his back but also the fact that he had lost design control at Barnoldswick.
Returning to Mike Evans... he wrote that:
"As matters progressed, it became logical in the eye that Rolls-Royce should take over Barnoldswick and Clitheroe. The famous 5/- (25p) meal at the Swan and Royal did take place late in December 1942 as Stanley Hooker described but that was a handshake on what was, in reality, a MAP directive inspired, one suspects, by Roxbee Cox. He, in fact, wrote to Hives on 15 December 1942 following a meeting three days earlier at which they, Wing Commander Whittle and A. G. Elliott, Rolls' chief engineer,had been present. Roxbee Cox had undertaken to lay a series of points which had been agreed before his superiors. These included:
(a) Production of Power Jets W2/500 engine to be in the hands of Rolls-Royce.
(b) The facilities to be used to be those at Barnoldswick.
(c) Research on, and development of, centrifugal type units to be in the hands of Power Jets Limited at Whetstone and Lutterworth.
In the event it did not happen that way. Rolls-Royce did take over frrom Rover. Hooker moved to Barnoldswick at the very beginning of 1943 and the official handover day 1 April. Rover, in exchange, took on board the Meteor tank engine over an extended time horizon. But the factory was not cleared of all work to make way for the W2/500. Rolls-Royce continued with the W2B/23, launching it into service as the Welland in the Gloster Meteor fighter with 616 Squadron in little more than a year.
