The showman of Hendon

Claude Grahame-White held Royal Aero Club certificate No. 6 and became a national celebrity in April 1910 when he raced Louis Paulhan for the Daily Mail’s London to Manchester prize, making the first night flight in the attempt. He lost the race but won the public, then won the Gordon Bennett Trophy in New York and landed a Farman beside the White House. In 1911 he formed the Grahame-White Aviation Company to run his flying school and aerodrome at Hendon and to design and build aircraft.

Box-kites for the flying corps

Its most important product was the Type XV, a pusher trainer often called the Box-kite. The RNAS and RFC bought 135, and in November 1913 one was used in the first British trials of firing a Lewis gun at ground targets. In the war the firm also built Morane-Saulnier and Breguet types under licence; one of its designers, John Dudley North, went on to be chief designer at Boulton & Paul.

Cyclecars and a lost aerodrome

Peace was unkind. The Bantam sporting biplane failed to finish the 1919 Aerial Derby, aircraft manufacture stopped in 1920, and the renamed Grahame-White Company built small cyclecars until 1924. Hendon, lent to the Admiralty in 1916, was taken over by the RAF and bought in 1925 after a long legal fight. A Grahame-White factory hangar now houses the RAF Museum’s First World War collection.

Továrny

• Hendon works and aerodrome · Hendon, London — Lent to the Admiralty 1916; bought by the RAF 1925

Lidé

• Claude Grahame-White · founder, pilot — 1879–1959; Royal Aero Club certificate No. 6
• John Dudley North · designer — Later chief designer at Boulton & Paul

Rekordy a prvenství

• First night flight, during the 1910 London to Manchester race
• First British trials of firing a machine gun from an aircraft at ground targets, Type XV, November 1913