Aerofilms Collection

by Claude Grahame-White and Francis Lewis Wills

-  Jack Watkins

CLAUDE GRAHAME-WHITE was one of the first Britons to receive a pilot's licence. He made the first-ever night flight (London to Manchester in 1910) and gave an exultant H. G. Wells his first ride in an aeroplane, circling the skies above Eastbourne in 1912. In 1913, he set a new passenger-carrying record by flying for 20 minutes with nine people on board.

Grahame-White (1879-1959) combined aviator glamour with a nose for a business opportunity. He gave lessons in flying mono-and biplanes at the London Flying Club he founded in 1911 (soon renamed Hendon Aerodrome and now the site of the RAF Museum), where the aerial derbies became part of the London social calendar. During the First World War, recognising the potential of aeroplanes for war service, he set up factory units at the airfield to create one of the largest production facilities in British aviation.

Aerial photography was used in the war, but peacetime left a glut of unemployed pilots, redundant aircraft and unused camera equipment. Grahame-White saw an opening for selling aerial footage to film companies and photos to newspapers and postcard and guidebook publishers, so, in 1919, he set up Aero-films with fellow former Royal Naval Air Service pilot Francis Lewis Wills (1893-1980), who was to become a company mainstay. By the end of their first year in business, the pair had accumulated 2,332 aerial images, taken on heavy cameras using fragile 5in by 4in glass plates, which were initially developed in the London Flying Club suite, with its bathroom serving as a darkroom.