FRENCH, LATE 19TH CENTURY

The story of these early flying pioneers began in Chard, Somerset in the early 1840s. Henson, a successful industrialist, was influenced by George Cayley's early writings on flight, and collaborated with the engineer John Stringfellow (1799-1883) to devise an aeronautical apparatus, creating a design based on observations of birds -- a fixed wing, propeller-driven airplane, for which they applied for a patent on 29 September 1842. They then went on to form the Aerial Transit Company and sought subscriptions for an airship. Their project, 'The Ariel', was colossal, a craft of 150-feet wing span with a streamlined cabin and twin six-bladed propellers, intended to be launched down a ramp. Unfortunately the project floundered and Henson went off to America in 1847. Stringfellow continued his researches into flight and made a 10-foot wing-span craft which flew some 22 feet in a lace mill in 1848. Henson died in Newark, New Jersey in 1888.