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Gatwick Airport was opened in 1958, however, the actual site was created in 1930 and operated as a flying club and school, used by the Surrey Aero Club.
In 1933 Gatwick Airport was purchased by Morris Jackman. He created the company Airports Limited. The following year Gatwick received it's license by the Air Ministry for commercial air transportation. The first scheduled flight was on 17th May 1936. The flight was from Gatwick to Paris. With the public seeing air travel as the latest great new way of travelling and soon became the way to travel and the number of flights increased greatly.
On 3rd September 1939, at 11am, Britain declared war on Germany, following the occupation of Poland. For Gatwick, this meant that the RAF took control of Gatwick Airport for military purposes and continued to operate there for some time after the end of hostilities. However, they still permitted a small number of civilian flights.
In 1958, after two years of construction, Queen Elizabeth II opened the new Gatwick Airport. From agreement by Winston Churchill's government, in 1952 followng the congestion and difficulties being experienced at Heathrow, the new Gatwick Airport grew from initial agreement to fully fledged airport in 6 years.
In 1959 - a year after completion - Gatwick Airport flew 368,000 passengers. In 1962 expansion of the airport was required, and as a result the terminal size was doubled and the runway extended in length. Until 1983 several modifications were made to Gatwick Airport to deal with the growing numbers of passengers when the decision was made for a new terminal to be added. Terminal 2 was opened in 1988 by Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh at a cost of £200m followed by a second pier in 1991.