The hunt is on for the descendants of four brave airmen and their inheritance after Antiques Roadshow shone a light on one of the most daring parts of The Times’s history.
A woman was given a valuation of £3,000 for a silver model of a biplane given to her grandfather after he took part in 1920 in a Times-sponsored attempt to fly from Cairo to Cape Town for the first time.
The woman, who has not been named, is the granddaughter of Sergeant Major James Wyatt, who was the mechanic for the flight. The model’s plinth carries a plaque bearing his name, so it is presumed that each of his colleagues was also presented with a silver model.
The woman who took the antique to be appraised told the BBC1 programme, broadcast on Sunday, that it would be lovely if other owners could come forward and maybe arrange for all five models to be reunited.
However, she indicated that she had no intention of cashing in on hers. “I thought it might be nice to donate it to the Brooklands Museum, where my grandfather later worked,” she said. The museum in Weybridge, Surrey, is devoted to motoring and aviation.
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The pioneering flight took place after The Times led a campaign to prove that such a trip was possible. “It seemed the duty of a great newspaper to make the attempt,” said a piece in the paper.
The four other men who took the flight were Captain Stanley Cockerell, Captain Frank C Broome DFC, Claude Corby and Dr Peter Chalmers Mitchell. Cockerell and Broome were the pilots, Corby was employed as a rigger and Mitchell was the scientific observer who also wrote dispatches for The Times.
Their Vickers Vimy biplane was able to go 1,000 miles nonstop, but the 7,000 miles between the two cities did not break down into seven legs. A map of their route has more than 20 stops marked on it. In the event disaster struck about halfway through when the plane crashed at Tabora, east of Lake Tanganyika.
The Times’s report said that Cockerell and Corby received slight injuries but “the Vickers Vimy itself was so seriously damaged that its flying days are over”.
It was also noted that George V had taken a keen interest in the flight and had inquired as to the crew’s wellbeing.
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The model biplane was made of solid silver by Goldsmith and Silversmith Co of London. It was hallmarked 1929, so could have been a gift marking the tenth anniversary of the attempt.