Centenaries of Channel Flights in 1910
- 12 June 2010 16:0456098
1910 and Jacques de Lesseps Channel Flight
After Bleriot's historic 1909 flight, 1910 marked more aviation firsts in East Kent, with not only Jacques de Lesseps' flight in May, and the Hon Charles Rolls - a there and back flight in June, but the first passenger flight across the Channel by Euro-American flier John Moisant in August.
Jacques de Lesseps crossed the Channel from Calais in his Bleriot aircraft and won the Ruinart Prize, on May 21, 1910, being only the second man to fly the Channel. Bleriot was denied this prize on a technicality not having registered the date he planned to fly! Jacques de Lesseps was the 10th son of Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, originator of the Suez Canal. Ferdinand de Lesseps married twice and had total of 17 children, (5 from his first marriage, 6 boys and 6 girls from his second. Jacques was born in 1883, when his father was almost 80.]
Two local papers (Dover Times and Dover Express) reported the success of Jacques de Lesseps' flight across the Channel on 21 May 1910. There appeared, across three columns the third week of May 1910, under a small headline "Flying the Channel - De Lesseps wins the Ruinart Prize.
"For the second time the Channel has been crossed by aeroplane - a Bleriot monoplane - this time by Jacques de Lesseps, youngest son of Ferdinand De Lesseps, the engineer who designed and supervised the construction of the Suez Canal. He made the crossing on Saturday afternoon, inspite of the adverse conditions of fog and wind which most people thought too dangerous, particularly in view of a fearful thunderstorm earlier in the day.
"He took off from Les Baraques after there was a break in the weather about 3.30pm, after first alerting his escort craft, a French torpedo destroyer "Escopette."
"I rose at once to a great height," he said, "and made for the destroyer lying about 2 miles out, but the destroyer, although going at top speed, couldn't keep pace with me and in less than 10 minutes I had outdistanced her.
"My machine worked beautifully from the start and at one point I reached about 2,700 feet. There was no vibration. There was a blue sky overhead, and the sea beneath sparkled like diamonds. Then I ran into mist which became denser and denser. For a time I saw nothing but fog, like a great white sea beneath me. The monoplane was travelling about a mile a minute towards the cliffs of the English coast.
"The compass was useless and I saw nothing but a white blanket beneath me for a time, until I sighted the port of Dover. I kept on until I could see the stone Bleriot monument marking the spot where he landed when he won the Daily Mail prize last year for the first Channel flight.
"I turned to the right and began to plane down, but then discovered my first tank of petrol was all but exhausted, and the second tank was not feeding it. I had to plane down from a height of 2,000 ft and could no longer rely on the engine to help me. I saw a bare field free of trees and houses and judged it a good spot to land. I was 35 minutes in the air.
"Immediately I landed two ladies ran out from the farm and greeted me with true British hospitality. They were very nice to me."
This landing was at Wanston Court Farm, managed by two ladies, the Misses Hewlett and Wallan. But the property adjoined Reach Court Farm, belonging to Mr Laslett, the plane having landed in a field of sanfoin he owned, causing damage estimated at £4, which Jacques promptly paid. A witness to the landing was farm labourer William Chapman, aged 80, who said "It's the first aeroplane I've ever seen. He came down on the field quite beautiful!"
The Dover Express reported that an estimated crowd of about 50 people had been waiting on the cliffs hoping to see De Lesseps, nearer Dover, but soon made for Wanston Farm when they heard the sound of the aircraft approaching in the mist, determined to see Bleriot and its pilot. First to pick it out was a boy from the Duke of York's School.
Once the aircraft had been spotted "a most amusing and of course exciting chase across country at once began, soldiers, boys, middle-aged, and elderly men, young men, and ladies, all running helter-skelter in search of the aeroplane." Most thought it had landed just beyond Langdon Fort, but the trail was a good two miles further, before, on topping a ridge overlooking Wanston Court Farm, they could see the plane in the middle of a field. By time they saw De Lesseps, aged about 32, the tall dark-haired man had changed from his flying clothes and was wearing a dark frock coat and trousers and white "muffler." He looked like a professional man going to the office and was surrounded by journalists.
These were joined by the Hon Charles Rolls - soon to make his own double Channel crossing -- who had dashed over from his Swingate airfield base to congratulate Jacques on his successful flight.
Many of the enthusiasts who continued to arrive on the scene had been led to believe it was to be a there-and-back flight and were to be disappointed, although De Lesseps did say he had, at one stage, hoped to fly both ways for the fun of it.
In addition to his Ruinart prize De Lesseps also won £100 which had been offered by the Daily Mail newspaper for the first airman to duplicate Bleriot's effort.
Centenary celebration 21 May 2010:
This was celebrated by two Bleriot XI replicas (one belonging to Pascal Kremer of Luxembourg, piloted by himself or by Goy Feltes; one owned by the Dutch Earlybirds Foundation, in Holland, piloted by Henk van Hoorn) crossing the Channel in perfect weather, landing at The Gliding Club, Waldershare. During the celebrations and reception at St Margaret's in the afternoon, the pilots met Michael de Lesseps, grandson of Jacques, and members of the Clayson family of St Margaret's whose family met Jacques de Lesseps when he landed at Wanston Farm in 1910. Also present were the present owners of Wanston Farm, Chairman of the parish council, and local historians. The party also had time to visit the Bleriot Memorial during the day.
We think you may be interested to see this short video film taken by Netfora - of Pascal's flight to Dover on 21st May - a most wonderful view of the white cliffs, Dover Castle, etc. landing at Waldershare, 100 years to the day of Lesseps' 1910 flight:
[URL] [/URL]
Also there is another video of the celebrations on Dover Society History Scrapbook website:
http://doversociety.homestead.com/JacquesdeLesseps.html
[caption to photo on the website: Jacques De Lesseps pictured, left, hatless, next to his aircraft at Wanstone Court Farm on May 21, 1910, with local residents, soldiers, a press photographer on left with a camera, and a bearded coastguard officer on the extreme right. The original photo was a Dover Express copy, but taken by Whorwells of Bench Street, Dover]
K.---------------------------------------------------
Lincolnshire Born and Bred - 12 June 2010 17:5656106Well a really great and interesting post there Kath...welcome to the forum. Its great to see...I myself did not know the half of it re these aero guys. Will read in more detail later and tell you how to make the links LIVE. At the moment as I write am adding some copy/pictures to the frontpage of the Hellfire Corner event Pencester.
email: dover7@msn.com - 12 June 2010 18:0656110interesting post there, two things caught my eye in particular, the pilot said that 20 women rushed to greet him on landing, showed true british hospitality and were nice to him.
i wonder what they did that was so nice?
secondly the witness was an 80 year old farm labourer, not many working people lived anywhere close to that age in those days. - 12 June 2010 23:1856161Howard -
You are right, not many people reached 80, and continued to work, but I have found that, a century ago, IF people survived childhood some of them could do so.
My husband had an ancestor named Samuel Hayward, a beadle, who lived in Wye, who lived to be 97 - Samuel died aged 97 in 1851.
The death rate for children was very high due to things like measles, whooping cough, diptheria, etc and lack of general hygiene and antibiotics I guess, particularly in large families. If you were fit when you were 80 (unless living on a private income) you usually had to work, be looked after by your family (if they didn't have to work) or go into the workhouse.
Kathleen---------------------------------------------------
Lincolnshire Born and Bred - 13 June 2010 02:3856166Very interesting post Kath - thank you. Shame most of us missed the Bleriot flyers coming iover to celebrate Jessop's flight. I'd have loved to have seen it.
Many of these early aviators were completely potty - I loved the story of Jules Nardini, the Italian aviator who became the 'resident' aviator at the brief Whitfield aerodrome. Apparantly he had been expelled from France for 'dubious' political activities and fled to Britain in July 1912 - en route he dropped lots of leaflets on Calais justifying his position...
There was also Claude Graham-White who camped out on Northfall Meadow in December 1910 to attempt the Baron de Forest longest-flight-into-Europe prize but had his Farman plane heavily damaged when a tent fell on it. According to Flight magazine: "a relic-hunting crowd succeeded in making off with one aileron, the whole of the trailing edge, and of nearly all the " tendeurs." Nice amiable idiots the average gaping crowd."
Such high praise for us Dovorians.
And then there was Samuel Cody a flamboyant Texan character who became a naturalised British citizen in order to pursue his interest in aviation. He even gave a lecture in the Town Hall on the 12th December 1912 called the Progress of Flight. He was killed in an air crash the following summer.
Those Magnificent Men really wasn't much of an exaggeration!
Samuel Franklin Cody (1897-1913) - 13 June 2010 07:3456171Great posts guys made for very interesting reading all round. yes Phil those magnificent men in their flying machines..what an era, isnt it fine to see them recognised and honoured today. By the way that movie was great fun with some good sections of it shot here in Dover.
Kath will make your web addresses LIVE in a minute. Its easy to do. To the right of the posting box is a collection of smileys..also there is an URL icon. When you click that URL icon it automatically opens in the posting box...then just type the web address between the two little boxes.
First time Ive ever heard of the Dover Times. What became of it?email: dover7@msn.com - 13 June 2010 11:2556198Yes, there are certainly some 'crazy' aviators, maybe like some of the racing drivers today they had no sense of risk or danger!
PaulB -
Thanks for your info about making the web addresses 'live'.
Here are the websites for the interesting videos, hope they now work:
[URL][/URL]
http://doversociety.homestead.com/JacquesdeLesseps.html
I am obtaining some information on dates of the early Dover papers and will post it shortly.
Kathleen---------------------------------------------------
Lincolnshire Born and Bred - 13 June 2010 12:0856200Grahame White's seaplane on UK tour 1912:
My husband has given the following information from his notes:
The postcard shows aviation pioneer Claude Grahame White with his "waterplane" demonstrating around the coast. Unfortunately there was no postmark to give the date.
But in the Folkestone Herald for July 13, 1912 there is a small headline "HYDRO AEROPLANE FEATS, by Grahame White, Great Pier Attraction," announcing a big attraction at the port being promoted by Robert Forsyth, the go-ahead managing director of the old Victoria Pier.
He was staging an "Aeroplane Carnival" with firework display and, with the consent of Lord Radnor, a large marquee was being put up on the beach to serve as a hangar for two new Henry Farman 'waterplanes.'
Bought by the Daily Mail newspaper, these seaplanes were to be demonstrated by Grahame White and his team of airmen.
Mr Forsyth told the Herald that Grahame White would not only take off from one side of the Victoria Pier, fly over it and alight on the water on the other side, to the delight of crowds lining the pier, but would be offering to give local people the chance to experience flying for the first time, taking them up as passengers.
One of the aircraft would be the same one in which White had flown over the town a few days before on a flight from Boulogne and landed on the sea near the harbour.
It was described as a new military Farman biplane, a convertible with 70hp Gnome engine. Fitted with interchangeable floats and wheels, it could land and take off on sea or land and was seen as having great potential.
But it had two mishaps on the way to England. While flying over France there was first an engine misfire and then a cylinder seized up at Abbeville on the next stage of the flight and a new cylinder had to be sent for, from Paris. Then fog postponed the Channel flight. And fog again hit the airman on his 40 minute crossing, forcing him to come down near Dymchurch not knowing where he was!
Setting off for Folkestone, he stopped en route at Hythe for more petrol and arrived in five minutes short of two hours since setting off from Boulogne.
Claude was shadowed across the Channel by his wife Mrs Grahame White, sailing in the yacht Majesta.
Once hauled ashore the 'hydroplane' had its floats removed and wheels fitted for an overland flight to Hendon, the operation attracting big crowds on the beach and on top of the Leas, who had never seen such an aircraft before.
Somehow White took off on his own - the Herald writer did not say whether from the beach or promenade etc - and "soared up like a bird" over the Leas and turned inland where he headed for a field in the centre of the West Cliff estate, where he landed to pick up his mechanic, attracting another large crowd.
Mrs White, this time travelling separately by car with friends, saw him off - hopefully on his way to Hendon. But it was not to be. There was engine trouble again and an unscheduled stop had to be made near Sidcup!
And all this on Grahame White's honeymoon!
Kathleen---------------------------------------------------
Lincolnshire Born and Bred
