John F. Leeming

John Fishwick Leeming (8 January 1895 – 3 July 1965) was an English entrepreneur, businessman, early aviator, co-founder of the Lancashire Aero Club, gardener and author.

John was born in Chorlton Lancashire in 1895, the youngest son of Henry and Edith Leeming. He had an older brother Henry (born 1886) and sister Jessie (born 1888). The 1901 census records the family living in 7 Demesne Road, Withington, together with Lucy Clifton (governess) and Florence Clark (servant, domestic). John's father Henry was an employer in a Silk & Cotton Manufacturing & Oil Merchant business together with his older brother John H Leeming. John was sent to a preparatory school in Southport, and sold his first published article at 13, and later became internationally known for his books, which sold in large numbers. Whilst at school he first saw the pioneering efforts of powered flying at Birkdale near Southport. In 1910 when John was 15 years he made his first glider and tried it on the sands there. The family moved to Hale in 1915 and in 1923 were living at Alderbank, 40 Ashley Road, Altrincham. In the spring of 1918 John (now 23 years) married Sarah Tabernor and they lived first at 38 Albert Road from 1920 to 1923 and later 23 Spring Road, Hale.

With the upsurge of aviation during the First World War, John built his next glider in 1921 in his parents' cellar, later moved to their garage at Bowdon Cheshire (now Greater Manchester), as it got bigger, then the greenhouse. In 1924 he flew his fifth glider which he had built from scrap from A.V.Roe & Co at their Woodford Airfield, with friends Tom Prince and Clement Wood and known as an LPW' after their initials. All his later gliders could be dismantled and stored in a garage. He crashed the glider and rebuilt it with a Douglas motorbike engine installed but it was too heavy to fly and they could only trundle around the field. The aircraft was based at Alexandra Park Aerodrome just outside Manchester City Centre from early 1924 until 1925 when the group moved to Woodford Aerodrome on invitation from the Avro Aircraft Company.

John and nine friends formed the Lancashire Aero Club in his greenhouse, the first aero club in Britain with John as first Chairman and later President. In that same year 1924, the glider was completed and taken to Alexandra Park Aerodrome Manchester where it was tow-launched into the air behind a high-powered car, frequently being damaged and repaired during its exploits. When Alexandra Park Aerodrome closed in August 1924, the club was invited to move to Avro's Woodford airfield. The club is the largest and oldest surviving aero club in Britain. Manchester Corporation opened a new airport at Barton in 1930. In July the same year Miss Winifred Brown of the Lancashire Aero Club won the prestigious King's Cup Air Race in Hanworth, West of London, despite tough opposition from numerous famous pilots, flying the very latest aircraft, in front of a 30,000 crowd. World War II stopped club activities, and in September 1939, the club's aircraft were stored in Avro's hangars at Woodford. The club restarted at Barton in 1946.

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