Claude Grahame-White - The Father of British Aviation! Claude Grahame-White was born in 1879, an early motorist and car dealer he was converted to aviation in 1909. His first machine was a Bleriot XII and on the 4 January 1910 received the first French Aeromautical Licence (no 30) to be issued to a Britain. On April 26 he received the Full British Pilots Licence number 6. Louis Bleriot himself borrowed and crashed his plane writing it off, he resupplied Graham-White with two replacement models as compensation and these were shipped to England to a weed covered small holding in Hendon that Grahame-White had purchased and was hoping to develope into a flying club. He entered and narrowly lost the £10,000 prize race, the Daily Mail London to Manchester Flying Race (183 miles) but received national heroic status in the process. He moved onto America and won almost every flying prize on offer!. On his return (an extremely wealthy person) He invested into further acres at Hendon and began Londons first aerodrome. Eventually selling Hendon to the Air Ministry after WW1, he emigrated to California and died on his 80th birthday, 19th August 1959 in Nice, France. Claude Grahame-White is recogonised as the first English pilot to carry mail in Britain and the first pilot to fly by night. Commissioned into the RFC, he took part in the first british air raid to Zeesbrugge and later became the author of numerous aeronautical books. A TRUE PIONEER OF AVIATION
Here is the hangar of the Grahame-White factory, at Hendon. I believe it was moved a few yards when it was restored. It now houses the WW1 collection of the RAF Museum, which occupies the rest of the Hendon site - or that part which hasn't been developed for housing and industrial units. The road leading to the Museum is called Grahame-White Way. While I was about it, I have attached a couple of photos of some of the exhibits - the Vickers Vimy replica, and a Sopwith Pup N5182 which is a genuine combat veteran.
GRAHAM-WHITE Claude. 'Claudie'. In flying clothes. Plane. Pupil of Bleriot. Opening Flying Schools and Paris and Hendon. Crossed the Atlantic. By Tec.
