John Stringfellow (1799 – 13 December 1883) was a British early aeronautical inventor, known for his work on the aerial steam carriage with William Samuel Henson.

Life

Stringfellow was born in

Attercliffe Attercliffe is an industrial suburb of northeast Sheffield, England on the south bank of the River Don. The suburb falls in the Darnall ward of Sheffield City Council. History The name Attercliffe can be traced back as far as an entry in ...

, England to Martha ée Gillanand William Stringfellow, stone mason. Initially apprenticed to the lace making trade in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

, c.1820 he relocated to

Chard Chard (; '' Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris'', Cicla Group and Flavescens Group) is a green leafy vegetable. In the cultivars of the Flavescens Group, or Swiss chard, the leaf stalks are large and often prepared separately from the leaf b ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

to work as an engineer of

bobbin A bobbin or spool is a spindle or cylinder, with or without flanges, on which yarn, thread, wire, tape or film is wound. Bobbins are typically found in industrial textile machinery, as well as in sewing machines, fishing reels, tape measures ...

s and carriages for the

lace Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is split into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted o ...

industry, becoming so successful that he started his own company. On 27 February 1827 he married Hannah Keetch. They had 10 children, including a son who died in infancy and a daughter, Laura, who had

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of Non-communicable disease, non-communicable Neurological disorder, neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked Seizure, seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activit ...

and died age 29. Together with William Samuel Henson, he had ambitions of creating an international company, the Aerial Transit Company, with designs showing aeroplane travel to exotic locations like

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. The initial designs were flawed, with Stringfellow's ideas centred on

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

and

triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard (aeronautics), canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The trip ...

models and Henson's ideas centred on an underpowered

steam-powered A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tra ...

vehicle, however In 1848 Stringfellow achieved the first ever powered flight using an unmanned 10 ft

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...

steam-powered monoplane, built in a disused lace factory in Chard, Somerset. Employing two

contra-rotating Contra-rotating, also referred to as coaxial contra-rotating, is a technique whereby parts of a mechanism rotate in opposite directions about a common axis, usually to minimise the effect of torque. Examples include some aircraft propellers, r ...

propellers A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

on the first attempt, made indoors, the machine flew ten feet before becoming destabilised, damaging the craft. The second attempt was more successful, the machine leaving a guide wire to fly freely, achieving some thirty yards of straight and level powered flight. A

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

model of that first primitive aircraft stands in

Fore Street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...

in Chard. The town's museum has a unique exhibition of flight before the advent of the

internal combustion An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...

engine and before the manned, powered flight made famous by the

Wright Brothers The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were American aviation List of aviation pioneers, pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flyin ...

. Stringfellow also invented and patented compact electric batteries, which were used in early

medical treatment A therapy or medical treatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. Both words, ''treatment'' and ''therapy'', are often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx. As a rule, each therapy has indications an ...

. Stringfellow's work was featured in an exhibition in 1868 at

The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Stringfellow was also a member of the South West Photographic Society and gave lectures about his inventions with photographs as illustration and proof of his pioneering aviation work. A keen

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

in his spare time, Stringfellow had begun learning the new art / science in the late 1850s, being among the first to produce a wet print of an

image An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be di ...

and quickly becoming proficient enough to advertise as a professional portrait photographer at his studio near the family home in Chard High Street. The

studios A studio is a space set aside for creative work of any kind, including art, dance, music and theater. The word ''studio'' is derived from the , from , from ''studere'', meaning to Wiktionary:study, study or zeal. Types Art The studio o ...

in Chard and in

Crewkerne Crewkerne ( ) is a town and electoral ward in south Somerset, England, southwest of Yeovil and east of Chard. The civil parish of West Crewkerne includes the hamlets of Coombe, Woolminstone and Henley, and borders the county of Dorset to the s ...

are where some of his flying vehicle machines were photographed. The 1871 census of England and Wales lists his occupation as "Machinist & Photographer". It is recorded that Stringfellow met Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Marconi at regular South West Engineering Institution and Royal Society events, enjoying great debates over the science and engineering principles of the day with his fellow engineers. In 1868 he was elected a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society and used his prize money to build a larger workspace for continuing his experiments. However, at nearly 70 years, his sight was beginning to fail and he was unable to make further progress. His 1881 census status is "Retired Mechanician Inventor of Flying Machines". John Stringfellow died in 1883 at the age of 84 and was buried in Chard Cemetery, Somerset, where there is a commemorative family monument. Stringfellow's first powered flight achievement was referenced in the 1965 film '' The Flight of the Phoenix''. The character Heinrich Dorfmann ( Hardy Krüger), a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

aeroplane designer, explains that it was a model aeroplane that made the first powered flight in 1851 and though his own experience with aeroplane design is with building models, the principles are the same. His design for an aeroplane to be built from the scraps of their crashed plane will fly them out of the desert to safety. Stringfellow and Henson are honoured by the

Royal Aeronautical Society The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a British multi-disciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. Founded in 1866, it is the oldest Aeronautics, aeronautical society in the world. Memb ...

with an annual lecture and dinner in Yeovil Royal Aeronautical Society#Henson & Stringfellow Lecture and Dinner

Notes and references

*Harald Penrose, ''An Ancient Air: A Biography of John Stringfellow of Chard, The Victorian Aeronautical Pioneer'' (Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1988), 183p., illus.

External links

BBC: John StringfellowChard Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stringfellow, John British aviation pioneers 1799 births Aviation inventors 1883 deaths People from Sheffield Steam-powered aircraft People from Chard, Somerset Engineers from Yorkshire

Life

See also

Notes and references

External links