Robert Cooke Fenwick (6 October 1882—13 August 1912) was a British aircraft pioneer and designer. Fenwick was educated at South Shields High School between 1893 and 1895, leaving the school to go to school in

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

. After school, he became an aircraft designer. He worked at Planes Limited and worked on the

Handley Page Type B The Handley Page Type B was an unusual single-engined pusher biplane built by Handley Page at the commission of a Liverpool patent agent. Damaged before its first flight, Handley Page disowned it, but it was rebuilt and flew for a time in 1910 ...

, later redesigning it into the Planes Limited Biplane. He is known for designing and building the

Mersey Monoplane The Mersey Monoplane was a prototype two-seat British pusher configuration monoplane of the early 1910s. A single example was built and entered into the 1912 British Military Aeroplane Competition but crashed during the trials and was destroyed. ...

, which competed in trials at the British Military Aeroplane Competition, on

Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies within the county of Wiltshire, but st ...

in 1912. He was granted his aviator's certificate, No. 35, on 29 November 1910. On 13 August 1912, Fenwick lost control of his Mersey monoplane and it crashed, killing him in the process.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenwick, Robert Cooke 1882 births 1912 deaths Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in England British aerospace engineers Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1912