ARTHUR DURAY 1881-1954

Les Aviateurs de la Grande Semaine d'Aviation de Rouen (19-16 Juin 19:0) 13   DURAY au poste de Direction d'un biplan H. Farman Collection of Jean-Pierre Lauwers

 

Meeting d'Aviateurs de Bruxelles DURAY ,Aviateur Collection of Jean-Pierre Lauwers

 

Where Was He Born? via email from Marc Ceulemans, 6-5-07 Courtesy of Richard Copeman Historic Racing Hello, I'm Marc Ceulemans, from Brussels. I sometimes (often) posted on TNF Atlas F1 and I want to react about a thing which is commonly accepted by everyone. Its' about Arthur Duray, the former Belgian then French driver. The sentence is this one: "Arthur Duray was born in New York City, New York of Belgian parentage..." What is your source(s) about the fact that he was born in NY ? You can answer me: Autocar (1954), Alpha Auto Encylopedie... But I think they were wrong. I'm not 100% sure but I'd like to believe he was just born near Brussels where he lived until he came to Paris. I think they were some confusions about "Leon Duray"... I would like to find (ans to see) the act of birth / death to know the truth... Editor's Note: If you can help us to resolve this mystery, please contact me. Thank you.

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      Using the Google search engine on Arthur Duray, (8-23-03), you will find about 190 links. Most of them deal with his life as a race car driver. If you refine your search by searching for "Arthur Duray +aviation", you will find three links. One of them does list a number of aeroplane contests in which he participated in 1910. Bancs d’essais moteurs à la Société des moteurs Gnome en ...      The website is a PDF file, in French, and isn't easily translated by the BabelFish program. However, even if you don't read French, you can find his name listed as a participant in many contests. You will be able to learn the location and date of the contests, along with the type of aeoplane he used and the engine which powered the plane. To access the page, just click on the title above

 

ARTHUR DURAY      This page on the F1EMPIRE website offers some of the basic vital statistics and two nice photos, one a portrait, the other of Duray in action in his race car. The webmaster of the site, Gordon Graff, writes that the nationality of Duray is still in question, although he is usually thought to be French. He also offers the fact that a biography is in preparation and will be added as soon as it is available. You can access the page by clicking on the title above.

 

Arthur Duray died in 1954. from the F1EMPIRE website

 

Editor's Note: If you have any information on this pioneer aviator please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper

 

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