Alternative Historical Tetherings: Wilbur Wright, George Moses Horton, and Virginia Dare in Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-212
Author(s):  
Michele Janette
Keyword(s):  
1948 ◽  
Vol 52 (447) ◽  
pp. 141-150
Author(s):  
Wilbur ◽  
Orville

On 6th January 1916 Lord Northcliffe, seconding a vote of thanks to Mr. Griffith Brewer for his lecture on the Life and Work of Wilbur Wright, said among other things : “The fact remains, however, that after more than one hundred years of experiment with aeroplanes, these two brothers were the first people in the world who made a machine to fly, and flew it. I make that remark emphatically, because there is one point to which Mr. Griffith Brewer did not call attention, and that is the attempt that has been made to rob the Wright brothers of the credit of their invention. We have not heard much of that in England, but ‘a prophet is not without honour save in his own country,’ and in the United States there have been long and persistent attempts to belittle the work of Wilbur and Orville Wright. I have closely read and followed the history of the hundred years of aeroplane experiments, and I am convinced that the credit of the first flying aeroplane is due to the Wright Brothers, and from the point of practical flying to nobody else. As an Englishman I am in an independent position, and I know that these words of mine will go across the Atlantic, and I believe they will assist in stopping the spread of the insidious suggestion that the Wrights did not invent the aeroplane.”


1960 ◽  
Vol 64 (589) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
W. P. Smith

The Fifteenth British Commonwealth Lecture “Some Recent Progress in Air Survey with Particular Reference to Newly- Developed Territories" was given by W. P. Smith, M.B.E., B.A., F.R.I.C.S. before the Royal Aeronautical Society at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 19th November 1959. Mr. Peter G. Masefield, M.A., F.R.Ae.S., Hon.F.I.A.S., President of the Society, presided. Introducing the Lecturer the President said: This lecture was the second of their four premier named annual lectures. The first was the traditional Wilbur Wright Lecture, the second this Commonwealth Lecture, the third was the Louis Bleriot Lecture and the fourth the Lanchester Memorial Lecture. Five years ago, as many of them would recall, His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, honoured them by giving the Commonwealth Lecture on ”Aviation and the Development of Remote Areas.“He thought that they could say that the subject of Mr. Smith's Commonwealth Lecture was in some ways a projection of the Duke of Edinburgh's lecture, under the title "Some Recent Progress in Air Survey with Particular Reference to Newly- Developed Territories.”Mr. W. P. Smith was a Director and leading light of Fairey Air Surveys Limited. Naturally as befitted a Commonwealth Lecturer, Mr. Smith was a master of his subject—one could almost say that he was “monarch of all he surveys.” He was a Durham man, born in 1920; he was educated at Wellfield School, Durham, and went up to Oxford and took his degree there. During the War, Mr. Smith was in command of Survey Units in the Royal Engineers and after the War he transferred to the Survey Branch of the Control Commission, in Germany. Then, in 1946 he left the Army to join the new Directorate of Colonial Surveys as a Senior Surveyor, and went to West Africa on the Volta River Project. He worked in Africa for a period and then in 1950 he joined Fairey Air Surveys Limited, then known as the Air Survey Company, as many would remember. He was a General Manager then, and was now a Director. So Mr. Smith had spent all his working life dealing with the subject on which he was going to talk about that evening, and in particular, he had been in charge of that vast Kariba Hydro-Electric Survey, on the Zambesi. They could have no one better to talk about Air Survey, and it was said that “life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.” Air Survey, and the sort of things Mr. Smith was going to talk about was, in some ways, a way of filling in some of those insufficiencies.He had much pleasure in calling on Mr. Smith to deliver the Fifteenth British Commonwealth Lecture.


1959 ◽  
Vol 63 (583) ◽  
pp. 381-393
Author(s):  
Charles J. McCarthy

It is a great distinction and a highly esteemed honour to be privileged to read the forty-seventh Wilbur Wright Memorial Lecture. It is also a distinct personal pleasure to be here. Over the past 15 years I have made periodic trips to England to visit the aircraft companies, to witness the spectacular Farnborough displays of the S.B.A.C. and to attend the Anglo-American Conferences of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences. This has afforded opportunities to observe and admire the rapid progress you have made in aeronautics, the brilliant achievements of British engineers and scientists and, more importantly, the chance to make and deepen warm and valued friendships. The joint meetings of the Society and the Institute are proving to be fruitful ground for the exchange of ideas and for becoming better acquainted. May I express the sincere wish that I shall have the pleasure of welcoming many of you to the Seventh Anglo-American Conference which will be held in October 1959 in New York.


1969 ◽  
Vol 73 (703) ◽  
pp. 558-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Roxbee Cox ◽  
Kings Norton

It is, and always will be, an honour to give the Handley Page Memorial Lecture, but for me the occasion has a special pietas because Sir Frederick Handley Page was a friend of mine for many years and I admired his extraordinary intelligence, pertinacity and independence of character. I had the honour to immediately follow him in two offices of high importance—as President of the RAeS and as Chairman of the Governors of this College, and as this is the last major lecture I intend to give, I am particularly happy that it is in his memory, just as the first major lecture I ever gave was in memory of that other great pioneer, Wilbur Wright.


1956 ◽  
Vol 60 (550) ◽  
pp. 635-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Forrest ◽  
K. Gunn

The 988th Lecture to be given before the Society and the 25th Main Lecture to be held at a Branch of the Society, “ Problems Associated with the Production and Use of Wrought Aluminium Alloys,” by G. Forrest, B.SC, A.M.I.Mech.E., A.F.R.Ae.S., and K. Gunn, B.Sc, A.R.S.M., was held under the auspices of the Belfast Branch on 5th April 1956. Mr. D. Keith-Lucas, F.R.Ae.S., Chairman of the Belfast Branch, opened the proceedings, and Mr. E. T. Jones, C.B., O.B.E, M.Eng., F.R.Ae.S., presided for the rest of the meeting.Mr. Keith-Lucas (Branch Chairman): This was a great occasion for the Belfast Branch because for the third time they were honoured to be the hosts of the parent Society, the Royal Aeronautical Society. It was with great pleasure that he welcomed their guests. First of all, Mr. E. T. Jones, the President-elect of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Dr. Ballantyne, the Secretary, and Mr. Dunsby and Mr. Simmons, both of the Technical Department, of the Society. The President, Mr. N. E. Rowe, and the Chairman of the Branches Committee, Mr. Handel Davies, had both sent their sincere apologies that they were unable to be present.He would also like to extend a special welcome to three members of the Preston Branch, Mr. Turner, Mr. Swales and Mr. Dyson. They were rather “ out on a limb” in Belfast, rather far from other Branches and they did appreciate this neighbourly gesture from the Preston Branch. He would also like to welcome their own President of the Belfast Branch, Sir Matthew Slattery, and their Vice-President, Mr. C. P. T. Lipscomb.But this was essentially a Royal Aeronautical Society function and not a Belfast Branch function. Therefore he would invite Mr. E. T. Jones, the President-elect of the Royal Aeronautical Society, to take the Chair and to conduct the meeting.Mr. E. T. Jones: It was a great pleasure and honour to be in Belfast that evening deputising for Mr. Rowe. They had already heard from Mr. Keith-Lucas that Mr. Rowe was unable to be present and he had asked him also to express his regrets.People working in aeronautics were sometimes liable to overlook the fact that materials had played a tremendous part in the advancement that they had achieved. They knew that the aerodynamicist, the structural engineer, the propulsion engineer, had all made their mark on the progress of aviation but they must not forget that materials had forged a very great key towards the progress which had been made. Indeed he recollected that Sir Harry Garner, in his Wilbur Wright Lecture in 1952, made the statement that he doubted whether the Aircraft Industry today could make a much more forward aeroplane than the Wright Brothers did in 1903 if they were confined to the use of the same materials and to the same stalling speed. He thought that statement would have been a very profound one even if stalling speed had been left out. If one considered the materials that people in those days had to work on it was wonderful that they flew at all. Thus he thought it was fitting that they should have a lecture of the kind Mr. Forrest and Mr. Gunn were to give.He had a pleasant duty to introduce the lecturers. Mr. Forrest was educated at London University and joined the National Physical Laboratory in 1925, or thereabouts, in the Engineering Division. In 1936 he joined the Northern Aluminium Company and he later transferred to the Aluminium Laboratories Ltd. He was now an Associate Director of Research in the Aluminium Laboratories Ltd. at Banbury. Mr. Forrest had impressed upon him that he should make a point of saying Banbury because there were three Laboratories of the firm. Mr. Gunn was educated at the Royal School of Mines. He joined the Northern Aluminium Company in 1944 and he too transferred to the Aluminium Laboratories in 1946. He did not know quite how they proposed to deal with the Lecture, but he thought that Mr. Forrest would read it and both would be available to reply to the questions.


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