Harold H. Piffard

Harold Hume Piffard (10 August 1867 – 17 January 1938) was a British artist and illustrator, and one of the first British aviators.[1][2][3]

Harold H. Piffard
The Thin Red Line by Harold H. Piffard
Born(1867-08-10)10 August 1867
33 Blandford Square, Marylebone, London
Died17 January 1938(1938-01-17) (aged 70)
Resting placeOld Chiswick Cemetery
NationalityBritish
Known forArtist, aviator and illustrator
Notable work
The Signing of the Armistice
MovementOrientalist

Personal life

Harold Piffard was born in Marylebone to Charles Piffard (4 July 1829 – 2 July 1884[4] and his wife Emily, née Hume (1837 – 1911), the daughter of James Hume, a barrister and Magistrate at Calcutta. They had married in Calcutta on 1 June 1858.[5] Charles had received his BA at Clare College, Cambridge in 1848,[4], was called to the Bar on 17 November 1854,[6] and was awarded an MA from Clare College on 30 June 1856[6]. Charles was Clerk of the Crown in the High Court of Calcutta. Piffard's four eldest brothers had all been born in India.[7]

Piffard was the couple's sixth son. He was educated at Lancing College, being sent there together with his older brother Lawrence in 1877[7] He was still there at the time of the 1881 census. A year earlier he had run away from school to find employment on the stage, sleeping on the Embankment for several nights while he visited theatres and music halls.[7] He travelled to India in February 1884 then spent some time travelling in India and working on a tea plantation. In 1889 he returned to London and began to study art at the Royal Academy Schools, and he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy in 1895. His address was then 5 Fitzroy Square, St Pancras.

A month later, on 4 June 1895, he married Helena Katherine Docetti Walker (1 August 1871 – 27 November 1900), the Daughter of Peter Geddes Walker (13 December 1833 – 28 May 1896), a Jute Manufacturer and naturalised German Margaretha (Meta) Docetti (c. 1837 – 19 October 1897)[8] at St John's Free Church in Dundee. At the time of his marriage his address was 29 Cambridge Avenue, Maida Vale, North London.[9] He was at the same address a year later in August 1896 when he was burgled.[10] However, the 1899 Electoral register shows him living at 18 Addison Road[note 1], Bedford Park, Chiswick, London, where he remained until he died

Piffard and Helena had four children:

  • Harold Reginald Grahame Sherard Piffard(28 May 1896 – 7 June 1917)[11] He emigrated to New Zealand for his health before the outbreak of the war. He worked for the Lone and Mercantile Agency as a clerk. He enlisted in New Zealand on 8 February 1916, and was killed in France in the following year.[12][13][14]
  • Dorothy Helena Hume Piffard(19 March 1898 – 7 May 1969) The 1939 England and Wales Register shows her as an artist-painter, living at her parents' old address at 18 Addison Road.[note 2]
  • Ivan Adrian Augustus Piffard(5 November 1899 – 27 February 1993) Like his father, he was the victim of burglary. [15]
  • Grahame Laurence Piffard (November 1900 – 12 February 1901) Died at three months of age and is buried with his parents in Old Chiswick Cemetery.

Helena died soon after the birth of her fourth child, Grahame, in 1900. Harold married again on 8 January 1902, again in Scotland, but at the St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland) in Edinburgh rather than the Free Church this time. His bride was Eleanor Margaret Hoile (17 April 1871 – 20 December 1953), the daughter of John Hoile (c. 1840 – 16 December 1877)[16] another jute merchant (deceased) and Catherine Robertson Kirkland (c. 1843 – 12 September 1911)).[17] Piffard and Eleanor had one son.

  • Hume Piffard (28 July 1905 – 12 September 1976)[18] Hume trained as an engineer and married Mabel Nancy Sothers in St Paul's Cathedral (Church of England) in Calcutta on 24 February 1940.

Piffard died on 17 January 1938; he is buried in Old Chiswick Cemetery, as is his first wife Helena.[19] His second wife Eleanor survived him for nearly 20 years.

Aviator

First flights in Acton

Piffard began making model aircraft in 1907, winning a prize for one of them at Olympia in 1909. He began to fly in 1909, using an 8-cylinder 40 horsepower ENV 'D' engine and building the airframe in his studio; he rented a shed on Back Common Road, Turnham Green near his home to assemble the aircraft, which was a biplane with elevator in front of the wing, and a variable-pitch propeller.[2] From September 1909 he tested the aircraft on a rented field in Ealing to the west of Masons Lane at what was then Hangar Hill Farm (not the same as the later Acton Aerodrome, which was on the other side of Masons Lane).[2][20] He managed to get the plane airborne and fly "a foot or two from the ground for a distance of a hundred yards or so."[2] However, on 3 December 1909 the aircraft and its marquee hangar were destroyed in a storm.[2]

Flying at Shoreham
Piffard in his hand-built aircraft Hummingbird on the Shoreham field where he flew it, 1910[2]

Piffard then co-founded (with George Wingfield, a lawyer) the Aviator's Finance Company, which took out a lease on land at Shoreham-by-Sea near his old school, Lancing College, which already possessed a hangar. With Edouard Baumann and two assistants, they reworked the aircraft's design and had Hummingbird ready on 3 May 1910. It was able to take off in short hops, earning it the nickname of "The Grasshopper"; it frequently crashed because of the hidden ditches in the grass. In September 1910 he flew at a height of 30 or 40 feet for half a mile, managing to fly right across the field to a nearby hotel, The Sussex Pad "in about 40 seconds". He had not learnt how to turn the plane in the air, and the plane had to be wheeled back to the hangar, as there was no space to take off near the hotel, but he celebrated with champagne all the same.[2][21][22]

A local cinematograph company asked to film a flight, and he confidently accepted; Colin Manton describes this as characteristic hubris.[2] Ignoring warnings of a dangerous ditch, he tried to fly over it, destroying the aircraft in a "comprehensive smash" which was recorded on film.[2] The cameraman noted that Piffard still "seemed in no way disappointed; in fact, I thought I saw a gleam of satisfaction in his eye".[2]

In 1911 Piffard unsuccessfully tested a new aircraft, the Piffard Hydroplane, which had floats as well as wheels, on Shoreham beach. He developed no more aircraft and did not attempt to fly again, working as an artist and illustrator. The land at Shoreham became Shoreham Airport.[2]

Artist

Painter

Piffard painted a wide variety of subjects in both oils and watercolour.[23]

  • Classical scene
  • Joan of Arc
  • Snowballing
  • Bather
  • Odalisque
  • Still life
  • The French assault on Saragossa on 10 February 1809
  • Courtship history painting
  • Napoleon history painting
  • Jacobean bathtime scene
  • The Signing of the Armistice, Nov. 11th, 1918[24]

Illustrator

Piffard started his work as an illustrator with contributions to periodicals including The Strand Magazine, The Illustrated London News and The Penny Pictorial Magazine.[23] He began to illustrate books in 1895, eventually illustrating over a hundred novels by authors including Frances Hodgson Burnett,[25] Guy Boothby, Harry Collingwood, Mrs. Henry Wood, Richard Marsh, Max Pemberton, and J. M. Neale, as well as a series of classics for Collins including works by Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot.[23]

  • Cover of George Griffith's Valdar the Oft-born, 1895, signed lower left
  • Cover of William le Queux's Zoraida, 1895, signed lower left
  • Interior of a Bromsgrove Nailmaker's shed, 1896
  • "The Silent Groves", plate on page 279 of Sibyl Falcon. A study in romantic morals by Alfred Edgar Jepson, 1895
  • "There in the blackness of the night I saw two gleaming eyes", plate on page 77 of The City of Gold by Edward Markwick, 1896

Example of a full set of illustrations

The following set of six illustrations were made by Piffard for Geoffrey Harrington's Adventures by Harry Collingwood. This was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1907.

  • Geoffrey Harrington holds onto the stump of the mast while attempting to cut free the broken mast and rigging
  • Geoffrey Harrington foils and assassination attempt
  • Geoffrey Harrington and the Queen plight their troth to each other
  • The Avelians set the Tutan Dockyard on fire
  • Geoffrey Harrington is succoured by his Royal Sweetheart
  • The deposed Tutan King listens to music

Legacy

In 2007 the Shoreham Airport Historical Association built a replica of Piffard's Hummingbird.[26]

Notes
  1. This street is now called Addison Grove.
  2. She gives the name of the house as The Studio and satellite images show a building the back garden with a large north-light.
gollark: Also quite hard.
gollark: As I said: code filtering is *possible*, but not really against someone who is actively attempting to circumvent it.
gollark: Poorly!
gollark: PotatOS does code filtering without terrible performance losses, but it only really works since the programs in question don't update to avoid it.
gollark: We already have string metatable access.

References
  1. Kirkpatrick, Robert J. (11 July 1905). "Harold Piffard". The Men Who Drew For Boys (And Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children's Books: 1844-1970. London: Robert J. Kirkpatrick. pp. 355–362.
  2. Manton, Colin (2006). "Harold Piffard of Bedford Park, Artist and Aviator Extraordinaire". Brentford & Chiswick Local History Journal. 15. Archived from the original on 1 November 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
  3. "Harold Hume Piffard (British, 1867 – 1938)". The Knohl Collection. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  4. "Searching for Surname=PIFFARD; Forename=Charles". A Cambridge Alumni Database. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  5. "Marriages". Homeward Mail from India, China and the East (Tuesday 27 July 1858): 8. 27 July 1858.
  6. "University Intelligence". Northampton Mercury (Saturday 5 July 1856): 4. 5 July 1856.
  7. Kirkpatrick, Robert J. (11 July 1905). "Harold Piffard". The Men Who Drew For Boys (And Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children's Books: 1844-1970. London: Robert J. Kirkpatrick. p. 356.
  8. National Records of Scotland (22 October 1897). "1897 Docetti, Meta (Statutory registers Deaths 282/1 425)". ScotlandsPeople. Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  9. National Records of Scotland (7 June 1895). "1895 Walker, Hekena K D (Statutory registers Marriages 282/1 82)". ScotlandsPeople. Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  10. "Albert Wallace, Charles Ward: Theft: Burglary". The Proceedings of the Old Bailey. 8 September 1896. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  11. "Birth". Dundee Courier (Tuesday 2 June 1896): 8. 2 June 1896.
  12. "13th Reinforcements". Nelson Evening Mail (6380): 6. 8 February 1916. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  13. "Personal Notes". Marlborough Express (6380): 5. 19 June 1917. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  14. Piffard, Harold Reginald Graham Sherrard - WW1 24221 - Army. National Library of New Zealand.
  15. "'Cool thief' is one-man crime wave". Acton Gazette (Thursday 31 August 1972): 7. 31 August 1972.
  16. National Records of Scotland (20 December 1877). "1877 Hoile, John (Statutory registers Deaths 282/1 484)". ScotlandsPeople. Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  17. National Records of Scotland (8 January 1902). "1902 Piffard, Harold Hume (Statutory registers Marriages 685/4 37)". ScotlandsPeople. Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  18. National Records of Scotland (8 August 1905). "1905 Piffard, Hume (Statutory registers Births 312/ 160)". ScotlandsPeople. Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  19. Nisinger, Connie. "Harold Hume Piffard". Find A Grave. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  20. Map and discussion of probable site: "NORTH EALING: Private flying field". UK Airfield Guide. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  21. "The Clarion : Armistice Centenary Edition" (PDF). St Michael's and All Angels, Bedford Park. 2018. p. 10. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  22. Gage, Bill (asst. county archivist) (17 April 2015). "Pioneer aviators helped develop Shoreham airfield". Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
  23. Kirkpatrick, Robert J. (8 October 2018). "Harold Piffard". Bear Alley. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  24. Gregson, Marjorie. "The Signing of the Armistice (after) Harold Hume Piffard". Lytham St Anne's Art Collection. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  25. "Harold Piffard". Getty Images. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  26. "Flying Machine". The Argus. 12 November 2007. Archived from the original on 10 November 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
Artworks
Books illustrated
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