Specification G4/31 issued in July 1931, called for an experimental general-purpose aircraft and an amendment of October of that year added further requirements. The operations to be undertaken by the machine were to include day and night light bombing, dive-bombing, torpedo bombing, land and coastal reconnaissance, army cooperation and photography, and casualty evacuation. Not surprisingly these diverse requirements were almost impossible to attain efficiently with one aeroplane and a collection of unusual aeroplanes was the result, but none went into production in the form proposed for this specification. Bristol did not build their biplane and monoplane designs to meet the specification but monoplanes were built by Westland and Handley Page. Biplanes were built by Blackburn, Hawker, Armstrong-Whitworth, Fairey, Parnall and Vickers. The last named company received a contract for their Type 253 biplane but this was changed to a monoplane design using a similar rear fuselage and finally went into production as the Wellesley.
The Handley Page Type 47, K2773, flown from Radlett in November 1933, by Sqn Ldr T. H. England, was a low-wing monoplane powered by a Bristol Pegasus engine. The wing had full span leading-edge slats and slotted flaps and ailerons. The pilot sat in an open cockpit while the gunner/observer with his Lewis gun faced aft in a cockpit situated level with the wing trailing edge where the deep fuselage tapered abruptly to the slim tail boom. The fixed, spatted undercarriage had a very wide track to allow a torpedo or the bomb load to be slung between the legs. Additional armament took the form of a Vickers gun mounted in the port side of the cockpit. The space in the fuselage between the two crew members was taken up by a compartment capable of taking stretchers. Heating for the crew and passengers was provided by hot air from muffs over the exhaust pipe which was carried aft along the fuselage side to the wing trailing edge.