“Look! It’s Mr de Havilland’s flying machine”

Geoffrey de Havilland was fourteen when his family moved to Crux Easton, a small village near Newbury, just south of the Berkshire/Hampshire border. By 1908, aged 25, he was working as an  automobile engineer when news of Wilbur Wright’s magnificent flights in France inspired him to build an aeroplane. Like everyone else at the time, his ideas about aeroplane design were entirely guesswork. Nevertheless, his grandfather agreed to loan him £1,000 and he set about the task, assisted by his friend, Frank Hearle.

They began by designing the engine, contracting to have it manufactured for £220. Then, in a small shed in Fulham, they began to build the airframe. In May 1909 Geoffrey married the governess of his young brother and sister and she played a part in their work by sewing the fabric on the wings.

In the summer of 1909, during a visit to  Crux Easton, the two friends walked to a nearby historic site, Seven Barrows. There they found some sheds built by Moore-Brabazon to house his first aeroplane, although he never used them. Geoffrey bought the sheds and transported his half-built aeroplane down from Fulham. He took rooms for himself and Frank Hearle at the nearby Carnavon Arms public house and, by December, their aeroplane was assembled and ready for testing. However, when Geoffrey tried to get it into the air, it showed a marked reluctance to leave the ground.

Finally, a sloping area was chosen and, with the machine accelerating downhill, he pulled back sharply on the controls. The machine leapt in the air but, immediately, the fragile wings buckled. Geoffrey was lucky to walk away virtually unscathed from the tangle of metal, wood and fabric. Nothing  could be salvaged except the precious engine – and his unshakeable resolve to fly.

Geoffrey de Havilland went ‘back to the drawing board’ and, the following summer, the two friends were back at Seven Barrows with a completely different design. This time, their careful testing, just a foot or so at a time, higher and higher, proved ‘No.2’ could actually fly. Later, Geoffrey sold it for £400 to the Government Balloon Factory at Farnborough, where both he and Frank Hearle went to work. He offered the £400 to his grandfather, but was told he could keep it. For British aviation, the £1,000 had proved to be a good investment.

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Painted in oils on canvas. 2003. 490mm x 610mm.