Claude Grahame-White (21 August 1879 – 19 August 1959) was an English pioneer of

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

, and the first to make a night flight, during the ''

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''-sponsored 1910 London to Manchester air race.

Early life

Claude Grahame-White was born in Bursledon,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

in England on 21 August 1879, and educated at

Bedford School Bedford School is a 7–18 Single-sex education, boys Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the county town of Bedford in England. Founded in 1552, it is the oldest of four independent schools in Bedford run by the Harpur Trust. Bed ...

. He learned to drive in 1895, was apprenticed as an engineer and later started his own motor engineering company.

Aviation career

Grahame-White's interest in aviation was sparked by Louis Blériot's crossing of the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

in 1909. This prompted him to go to France, where he attended the Reims aviation meeting, at which he met Blériot and subsequently enrolled at his flying school. Grahame-White was one of the first people to qualify as pilot in England, becoming the holder of

Royal Aero Club The Royal Aero Club (RAeC) is the national co-ordinating body for air sport in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1901 as the Aero Club of Great Britain, being granted the title of the "Royal Aero Club" in 1910. History The Aero Club was foun ...

certificate No. 6, awarded in April 1910. He became a celebrity in England in April 1910 when he competed with the French pilot Louis Paulhan for the £10,000 prize offered by the ''

'' newspaper for the first flight between London and Manchester in under 24 hours. Although Paulhan won the prize, Grahame White's achievement was widely praised. Monoplane 2163688850 e698d1610a o

On 2 July 1910, Grahame-White, in his Farman III biplane, won the £1,000 first prize for Aggregate Duration in Flight (1 hr 23 min 20 secs) at the Midlands Aviation Meeting at

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...

. In the same year he won the Gordon Bennett Trophy race in

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, New York, for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club. On 14 October 1910, while in Washington, D.C., Grahame-White flew his Farman biplane over the city and landed on West Executive Avenue near the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

. Rather than being arrested Grahame-White was applauded for the feat by the newspapers. On 26 September 1911 at an International Air Meet at Nassau Boulevard Long Island New York attended by Eugene Ely, George W. Beatty, Harry Atwood, Bud Mars, J. A. D. MucCurdy and Matilda Moissant, Grahame-White won a prize of $600.00 in a speed contest for flying his monoplane ten miles at a speed of miles per hour. He is known for activities related to the commercialisation of aviation, and he was also involved in promoting the military application of air power before

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

with a campaign called "Wake Up Britain", also experimenting with fitting various weapons and bombs to aircraft. He appeared in the 1914 film ''Across the Atlantic'' (also titled ''Secret of the Air'') with fellow aviator Gustav Hamel; the film was directed by Herbert Brenon and starred King Baggot. Grahame-White formed the Women's Aerial League in 1909 and trained several women to fly. Members of the league included test pilot Winifred Buller, Lady Anne Savile, Eleanor Trehawke Davies and suffragette leaders Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. He established a flying school at Hendon Aerodrome. Cheridah de Beauvoir Stocks, the second

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

woman to gain a

aviator's licence, trained at the school, earning her certificate in November 1911. In 1912 Grahame-White gave

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

his first flight. During

, Grahame-White flew the first night patrol mission against an expected German raid on 5 September 1914. Hendon Aerodrome was lent to the Admiralty (1916), and eventually taken over by the RAF in 1919. It was purchased by the RAF in 1925, after a protracted legal struggle. After this he lost his interest in aviation, eventually moving to

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionRoyal Air Force Museum London, where it houses the museum's World War I collection and is named the Grahame-White Factory. Grahame-White was a co-founder of Aerofilms Limited in 1919.

Grahame-White Aviation Company

In 1911 The Grahame-White Aviation Company was formed to cover his aviation interests, including aerodromes and aircraft design, development, and construction. One of the designers, John Dudley North, became

Boulton & Paul Boulton & Paul Ltd was a British general manufacturer from Norwich, England that became involved in aircraft manufacture. Jeld Wen Inc. bought Boulton & Paul (along with another joinery company John Carr) from the Rugby Group plc in 1999 to ...

Publications

As well as his success in aviation, Claude Grahame-White was a published author whose works include: * ''The Story of the Aeroplane'' * ''The Aeroplane, Past, Present, and Future,'' 1911 * ''The Aeroplane in War'' * ''Aviation, 1912'' * ''Learning to Fly'', 1914 * ''Aircraft in the Great War'', 1915 * ''Air Power'', 1917 * ''Our First Airways, their Organisation, Equipment, and Finance'', 1918 * ''Heroes of the Air'' * ''With the Airmen'' * ''The Air King’s Treasure'' * ''The Invisible War-Plane'' * ''Heroes of the Flying Corps'' * ''Flying, an Epitome and a Forecast'', 1930 He also contributed to newspapers, reviews, and magazines, dealing with aeronautics in the military and commercial fields.

References

External links

* * *
The restoration of Claude Grahame-White's aviation building begins after 20yrs of neglect
BBC programme – Rebuilding Our Past: Hendon * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Grahame-White, Claude 1879 births 1959 deaths British aviation pioneers

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...