ERNEST MAUND

 

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES via email from David Maund, 10-24-04 Hello Ralph.      My name is David Maund. Ernest Maund is my great great grandfather. After seeing your article on the internet, I decided to contact you by e-mail. I have spoken to my father Stuart Maund and my grandad Roy Maund to see if they could help to give you some new information that you might need. What would you like to know. Please e-mail back with what information that you might need.      My great great grandfather was a bit of an inventor. He also invented the dipping head light. My grandad still has his first models of the dipping head lamp. My grandfather also had the propeller of my grandads origianal plane but it was damaged and lost a few years ago.      I look forward to hearing from you. David Maund

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "Ernest Maund", using the Google search engine, (8-16-04), you will find just two links, only one of which is clearly relevant.

Genius was a real high-flyer Shropshire STAR.com Dec 19, 2003      This page, which was available today, (8-16-04), from the Archives of the Shropshire Star, is the definitive source of information on the life and career of Ernest Maund. Following are several extracts from the article. "      According to aviation historian and researcher Mike Grant, the story of the British aviation industry begins here, in Shropshire, at Craven Arms.       "Without a doubt, he was the first British national to fly," says Mr Grant, who gives details of Maund's aviation career in his book, Wings Over The Border.      Dave Evans, of Longmeadow End, has a keen interest in the area's history. Although he has no direct information on that first flight, he says flying did take place from what are now the playing fields in the town. He has a poor quality newspaper photo showing Maund, with twin sisters either side of his monoplane, taken, he says, at the back of Market Street in Craven Arms in 1908.      An aircraft taking part in an air race piloted by one James Valentine caused a sensation when it landed at Brockton, near Madeley, on July 31, 1911.      Pilot Gustav Hamel gave flying displays at various locations in Shropshire in the summer of 1912, and the novelty can be judged by the fact that at least one contemporary press report described this, quite wrongly, as the first time an aeroplane had been in Shropshire      You can read the whole story by clicking on the title above. I was unable to find a source for the book, Wings Over The Border.

I have no information as to the dates of his birth or his death.   Editor's Note: If you have any more information on this pioneer aviator please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper

 

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