Thanks to Chris Williams for pointing me in the direction of Patrick Wright’s article at openDemocracy about the Anti-Air War Memorial at Woodford Green, Essex. I hadn’t heard of this before. It was made by sculptor Eric Benfield in the form of a bomb falling through the air, and in June 1936 it was put […]
On this day in 1922, Andrew Bonar Law, the “unknown Prime Minister”, began his premiership – the shortest of the twentieth century. Here’s a minor footnote to Bonar Law’s career. Some time before the end of March 1913, while leader of the Unionist Party (as the Conservatives were then called), he told Charles à Court
While browsing through some nice pictures at Werkost of the Shuttleworth Collection, I found this photo of part of a downed Gotha. It looks like the inside of a wing, but it’s the accompanying text that is interesting. The fragment itself is inscribed GOTHA BLANC NEZ 1917, and the label says: PIECE OF GOTHA BOMBER
Chronomedia is a very nicely done chronology of developments in just about all forms of audio-visual mass media, covering a wide span but inevitably concentrating on Britain and America in the 20th century. Lots of interesting little tit-bits: the first film shot from an aircraft in flight was in September 1908; while in September 1939,
Here’s a minor curiosity. Many of the leading figures in the RFC/RAF (at least, many of the ones that interest me) had earlier served in West Africa. (They all served in the Boer War too, but that wouldn’t have been uncommon for their cohort.) This is the list: Hugh Trenchard: Southern Nigeria Regiment, 1903-10 Frederick
This logically should have gone into the previous post about archives, but I got carried away working out what that air mail poster was about! But I had intended to mention two online archives of British newsreels: British Pathe and Movietone (slogan: “It speaks for itself”). These are great. You can search the descriptions for
As mentioned at Early Modern Notes, it’s Archive Awareness … something … in the UK. Lots of events showcasing different archives and themes. There’s even a nice aviation-related image on their front page (though it’s not obvious what archive it’s from, the RAF Museum perhaps). It’s an advertisement for the first official British air mail
Aside from the whole shadow-of-the-bomber thing, I have an amateur (okay – more amateur, then) interest in the Cold War and the fear of nuclear war. Partly because of the obvious continuities and parallels with the area I’m studying, but also because I’m old enough to remember the last flowering of nuclear paranoia in the
‘R101 RIDING AT HER HOME MAST. Set in a frame of typical English countryside beauty, R101, product of modern engineering and cornerstone of Britain’s hopes of commercial air supremacy, rides at her mast at Cardington, in Bedfordshire. This mooring mast was specially built to facilitate the handling of Britain’s largest airships, R100 and R101, which
