Description:Mr. Frederick W. Breary was the Honorary Secretary of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. In 1890 and 1891 he wrote to Henry Wright, the fourth Duke of Sutherland’s Private Secretary informing Wright and the Duke about developments in aeronautical science. Brearey’s letters give an intriguing and detailed insight into aeronautical experiments at this time.
Who was Frederick W. Brearey?
Frederick William Brearey (1816-1896) was the Honorary Secretary of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain from 1866, when the society was established, until his death in 1896. Brian Riddle, Librarian of the Royal Aeronautical Society writes that Brearey had patented his own design for a ‘Flying Machine’, a wave action aeroplane which flew with limited success. Brian Riddle describes Breary's designs as having ‘mechanical flapping flight action’ which imitated the flapping actions of wings in flight.
Information kindly supplied by Brian Riddle, Librarian of the Royal Aeronautical Society. For more information follow the link to the Royal Aeronautical Society Website www.aerosociety.com
Letter from Breary to Wright, 18th September 1890
On 18th September 1890 Mr. Breary wrote to Henry Wright concerning the need for meetings to ‘advance the experimental part of the science’. After ‘the negative results’ of previous Council Meetings, Breary had ‘called no Council Meetings but those necessary to keep the Society in existence’.
Breary had produced a book ‘which after having been before the Publishers who seem afraid of the paucity of Readers’, was now to be published by ‘Longman’s at their request’. A ‘long letter’ which Breary had written had also been published in a journal entitled ‘Engineering’ which he advises Henry Wright to read.
Breary’s letters refer to Hiram Maxim, an American inventor who was conducting aeronautical experiments in England in the 1890s. Breary notes that on his return from Scarborough he had visited Maxim and ‘became acquainted with the magnitude of his operations’. Breary adds that Maxim’s experiments had cost him ‘about £4000’.
The letter describes Maxim’s ‘shed’ and ‘apparatus’. Maxim’s shed had doors which were ’40 ft in height’. The shed had been constructed to house Maxim’s model aircraft and a ‘railway’ was to be laid, 'upon which the preliminary run is intended to be made’. Adding that ‘no expense will be spared’ on the experiment, Breary remarks that it may be ‘something to see if the Duke ever drives out that way’. He notes that the Duke had already met Mr. Maxim ‘who is an American’.
Contextual Information about Sir Hiram Maxim from Brysson Cunningham, ‘Maxim, Sir Hiram Stevens (1840–1916)’, rev. Anita McConnell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34954]