Claude Grahame-White

Extract

Claude Grahame-White, who died on 19th August 1959, in Nice, after a short illness, was perhaps the outstanding British pilot in those golden years of flying 1909-1914. He did more than anyone to stimulate interest in flying in those early days and, in the 1916 edition of the then well-known “Representative Subjects of the King” published by Dod's Peerage Publishers, was described as “a pioneer of aviation, not only as an aeroplane pilot but as a constructor, and one of the chief originators of this new Industry in England—an industry which now promises to equalise in importance, and eventually eclipse, even such a great industry as that of shipbuilding”.