Claude Grahame-White
| Claude Grahame-White | |
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Claude Grahame-White in 1910
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| Full name | Claude Grahame-White |
| Born |
21 August 1879 Bursledon, Hampshire |
| Died | 19 August 1959 (aged 79) Nice, France |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse | Dorothy Caldwell Taylor (1912, dissolved 1916), Ethel Levey (1916) |
Claude Grahame-White (21 August 1879 – 19 August 1959) was an English pioneer of aviation, and the first to make a night flight, during the Daily Mail sponsored 1910 London to Manchester air race.
Claude Grahame-White was born in Bursledon, Hampshire on 21 August 1879, and educated at Bedford Grammar School. He learned to drive in 1895, was apprenticed as an engineer and later started his own motor engineering company.
Grahame-White's interest in aviation was sparked by Louis Blériot's crossing of the English Channel in 1909. This prompted him to go to France, where he attended the Reims aviation meeting, at which he met Blériot and subsequently enrolled at his flying school.
Grahame-White was one of the first people to qualify as pilot in England, becoming the holder of Royal Aero Club certificate No. 6, awarded in April 1910. He became a celebrity in England in April 1910 when he competed with the French pilot Louis Paulhan for the £10,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail newspaper for the first flight between London and Manchester in under 24 hours. Although Paulhan won the prize, Grahame White's achievement was widely praised.
On 2 July 1910, Claude Grahame-White, in his Farman biplane, won the £1,000 first prize for Aggregate Duration in Flight (1 hr 23 min 20 secs) at the Midlands Aviation Meeting at Wolverhampton. In the same year he won the Gordon Bennett Aviation Cup race in Belmont Park, Long Island, New York, for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Aero Club.
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