Flying high in aviation history

Alcock and Brown's Vickers Vimy was designed and built in Crayford

Even to its own inhabitants, the town of Crayford might not appear to be the most remarkable of places. But local historians and aviation enthusiasts will know that Crayford can lay claim to being a significant birthplace of powered flight.

Crayford's important contribution to aeronautics is the subject of a new project that also aims to highlight the role of a company, which transformed a small rural hamlet into a thriving and industrial town.

The project, funded with a £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, marks the anniversaries of two big landmarks in aviation history.

Ninety years ago on 15 June, 1919 Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first ever non-stop flight across the Atlantic in a modified Vimy aircraft.

Maxim's machine flew along the tracks at 42 miles per hour

It is also the 115th anniversary of Sir Hiram Maxim's steam-powered flying machine which in 1894 at Baldwyn's Park, Bexley, became the first heavier-than-air machine to lift itself off the ground.

The pioneering machines were both designed and built in Crayford by a company called Vickers. It is the same company which, in many ways, helped to build the town itself.

Hiram Maxim

The story begins with an American-born inventor called Hiram Maxim, who in 1888 set up a factory in Crayford to manufacture his automatic machine gun. By 1897, Maxim had gone into partnership with a Sheffield-based armaments company called Vickers & Sons.

Maxim died of pneumonia in November 1916; his aviation ambitions largely unfulfilled despite the fact he had invented and built a 3.5 tonne steam powered flying machine that was able to lift itself off the ground some nine years before the subsequently more famous Wright brothers managed the feat.

The joint company was renamed Vickers Limited in 1911, and despite the death of Maxim, it would go from strength to strength.

Vickers became the main employer in Crayford

A company town

In the years before World War I, Vickers' Crayford workforce grew from 300 to 14,000 and became the town's main employer. The company was employing workers at such a rate that it needed to build a new estate to house them, Crayford Garden suburb.

Another gift from the company to Crayford was the Princesses' Theatre, but this was sadly demolished in the 1960s. In fact, apart from the housing estate, there is very little evidence today of the company's legacy in Crayford.

Vickers was shut in the 1980s and the site of the factory is now a retail park (although the clock tower survives) and the workers' canteen is now a council building.

Searching for a memorial of the town's aviation history can also be frustrating - there is a small plaque placed incongruously on the side of a fast food restaurant.

Both teachers and children were completely amazed that their town had such a link with an important part of aviation history Simon McKeon Local Studies and Archive Centre

A magnificent town and its flying machines

"One of the reasons why we wanted to do this project is because there are not many things, buildings or places in the town that remembers this once huge factory employed over 14,000 people at its peak," says Simon McKeon, of Bexley Local Studies & Archive Centre.

"If you were to ask younger people, I don't think it would mean very much. But if you were to ask older people, it is probable that their relatives may have worked in the company."

The project has seen Simon and his colleagues going into local classrooms to teach children about Vickers and its influence on Crayford's development.

"Both teachers and children were completely amazed that their town had such a link with an important part of aviation history," says Simon.

As a result of these activities there will be an exhibition and website with locally produced content. A play called 'A Magnificent Town and its Flying Machines' has already been performed at schools and at Hall Place in Bexley.

Only the Clock Tower survives of the Vickers factory

Returning heroes

News of Alcock and Brown's successful non-stop 16-hour 27 minute transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Clifden in Ireland on the 15 June, 1919 made the front page of the New York Times.

On their return to England they were presented with a cheque of £10,000 (courtesy of the Daily Mail) by Winston Churchill, who was then Britain's Home Secretary. They were also knighted at Buckingham Palace by George V.

On 23 July, 1919, barely a month after their historic flight, both men came to the Princesses' Theatre in Crayford. They thanked Vickers and the workers for building their aircraft because without them, said Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, 'the flight would not have been made.'

The likes of Charles Lindbergh and the Wright brothers may be the more illustrious names in aviation mythology, but it is Alcock and Brown, and before them Hiram Maxim, who conquered the skies first.

And they did it with machines made in Crayford.

LOCAL EVENTS

On Thursday, 9 July from 2pm to 4pm there will be an reminiscence event for former Vickers factory workers at Hall Place, Bexley.

For more information or if you'd like to share your memories about working at Vickers contact Simon KcKeon on 020 8836 7369 or [e-mail]