Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith (22 March 1909 – 3 December 1981)Charles Gibbs-Smith, famous people from Teddington
at Information Britain web site was a British polymath historian of aeronautics and aviation. His obituary in '' The Times'' described him as "the recognised authority on the early development of flying in Europe and America"

Richard P. Hallion Richard P. Hallion is Senior Adviser for Air and Space Issues, Directorate for Security, Counterintelligence and Special Programs Oversight, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. He is responsible for analysis and insight regarding the conceptualization, ...

called him "The greatest of all historians of early aviation".

Biography

Charles Gibbs-Smith was born in Teddington, Greater London in 1909 to a medical family which included in its line John Harvard, the founder of Harvard College. Gibbs-Smith attended

King's College School, Cambridge King's College School is a coeducational independent preparatory school for children aged 4 to 13 in Cambridge, England, situated on West Road off Grange Road, west of the city centre. It was founded to educate the choristers in the King's ...

, and Westminster School in central London before earning a Master of Arts degree at Harvard University in 1932. The same year, he gained employment as an assistant keeper at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1939 he organised the Exhibition of Early Photographs to Commemorate the Centenary of Photography, 1839–1939. He was seconded to the Ministry of Information in the Second World War and conducted training in aircraft recognition for the Royal Observer Corps—this experience catalysed a deep interest in aviation history. He authored the government's manual on aircraft recognition in 1944 as well as being a contributor to the training journal '' Aircraft Recognition'', then became the ministry's Director of the Photographic Division in 1945. Between 1947 and 1971 he was Keeper of the Department of Public Relations at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The department, the first public relations department of any English museum, was initially called the Museum Extension Services. In this role he arranged museum exhibitions, conducted scholarly research, and wrote on a variety of topics, including a study of the Bayeux Tapestry and a centenary collection of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Starting in 1976 he had a Research Fellowship at the Science Museum in London. Upon retirement, he was chosen as the first

Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History The Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History, also known as the Lindbergh Chair, is a one-year senior fellowship hosted by the U.S. National Air and Space Museum (NASM), to assist a scholar in the research and composition of a book about aer ...

at the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

in 1978, for which he spent a year in the United States studying the papers of the Wright brothers.

Research and writings

In ''The Invention of the Aeroplane 1799–1909'', Gibbs-Smith wrote a concise account of aeronautical developments which led slowly to functional fixed-wing aircraft. Gibbs-Smith investigated the disputed subject of inventor Clément Ader's 1897 aeronautical experiments. Gibbs-Smith's 1968 book on Ader thoroughly described the documented evidence that Ader did not make a controlled flight in 1897, and only claimed to have done so in 1906, after others had already flown. In his 1960's "definitive" work ''The Aeroplane: An Historical Survey Of Its Origins And Development'', Gibbs-Smith wrote for the Science Museum about the controversy over Henri Coandă's early aircraft—the

Coandă-1910 The Coandă-1910, designed by Romanian inventor Henri Coandă, was an unconventional sesquiplane aircraft powered by a ducted fan. Called the "turbo-propulseur" by Coandă, its experimental engine consisted of a conventional piston engine driv ...

—which Coandă said was the first jet aircraft. Gibbs-Smith wrote a rebuttal to Coandă, describing how the aircraft had no injection or combustion of fuel in the air stream. Gibbs-Smith said that it would have been suicidal to the pilot to attain combustion of the turbine-compressed air as the open cockpit would be subjected to the heat of the exhaust. Gibbs-Smith also investigated reports of the paranormal, including ghosts, flying saucers and parapsychology. He defended his studies among more sceptical colleagues.

Honours

*The Danish government appointed him to the

Order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog ( da, Dannebrogordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry instituted in 1671 by Christian V. Until 1808, membership in the order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank, who formed a single class known a ...

for his work on a 1948 exhibition. *The Royal Aeronautical Society awarded him an Honorary Companionship.

Selected publications

*''The Aircraft Recognition Manual'' (1944) – formerly ''Basic Aircraft Recognition'' *''The Great Exhibition of 1851'' (1951). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office *''The Wright Brothers: A Brief Account of their Work, 1899–1911'' (1963). London: Science Museum. *''Sir George Cayley's Aeronautics, 1796–1855'' (1962)
Sir George Cayley's aeronautics, 1796–1855
' entry at National Library of Australia site *''The Invention of the Aeroplane 1799–1909'' (1966), London: Faber & Faber. *''A Directory and Nomenclature of the First Aeroplanes 1809 to 1909'' (1966). London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office *''Clément Ader – his flight claims and his place in history'' (1968), London: Science Museum *''Aviation: an historical survey from its origins to the end of World War II'' (1960; 1970; 1985), London: Science Museum * ''The Bayeux Tapestry'' (1973), London ; New York, Phaidon ; Praeger *''The Rebirth of European Aviation 1902–1908'' (1974). London: Science Museum

References

External links

*

in ''Flight International'', 15 May 1975 p. 806 (Link inaccessible 4/5/2020)

''Flight'' 1960

by Gibbs-Smith in ''Flight International'', 1962, at Flightglobal/Archive

''Flight'' April 1959
Television interview with Gibbs-Smith on the subject of UFOs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibbs-Smith, Charles Harvard 1909 births 1981 deaths People educated at Westminster School, London People of the Royal Observer Corps 20th-century British historians Harvard University alumni Alumni of King's College, Cambridge