Last week Charles Woodruff mentioned Reginald Warneford’s grave in Brompton Cemetery. This week on a crisp, sunny morning I set off in search of it.
I noticed that work on the new Oddbins by Barons Court station is progressing.
The Earl’s Court exhibition halls are no more and the site is being prepared for development as housing although there is wrangling about the amount of the laughably termed “affordable” homes that Labour-controlled Hammersmith council and Mayor Khan want to see built.
Brompton Cemetery was looking beautiful with frost on the ground, the leaves turning and crows hopping about among the crowded headstones and memorials.
Reginald Warneforde’s memorial did not disappoint. It was paid for by readers of The Daily Express – I sense the hand of Beaverbrook behind this initiative. As you can see he was awarded the Victoria Cross. He also collected the Légion d’honneur from the French Army Commander in Chief, General Joffre on 17th June 1915. “Following a celebratory lunch, Warneford travelled to the aerodrome at Buc in order to ferry an aircraft for delivery to the RNAS at Veurne. Having made one short test flight, he then flew a second flight, carrying an American journalist, Henry Beach Newman, as passenger. During a climb to 200 feet, the righthand wings collapsed leading to a catastrophic failure of the airframe. Accounts suggest that neither occupant was harnessed and were both thrown out of the aircraft, suffering fatal injuries. In the case of Newman, death was instantaneous.” (Wikipedia)
I spotted another post-prandial aviation fatality in the cemetery. Sir Edward died together with Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and Viscountess Ednam when their aeroplane returning to London from Le Touquet exploded in midair over Meopham, Kent, in 1930.
Wikipedia states ‘During a climb to 200 feet, …’, which sounds odd. A fuller account on victoriacross.org.uk states: ‘At the end of the flight at 2,000 feet Warneford banked to start his landing approach, or so it seemed to those on the ground. Suddenly the plane began to go into a spin, dived steeply, then pulled out flinging up its tail which snapped off and caught the propellor, shearing part of it away. At 700 feet the aeroplane started to roll and turned upside down throwing Warneford and the journalist out as they were not strapped in’.
There is a lengthy Pathe newsfilm of his funeral in June 1915 on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHl7_g-PV2U
Thank you and I’m glad I didn’t try and pass off the Wiki mis-information as my own.