Celebrating the First UK Aerial Post
Introduction
In 1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright secured their place in history with a powered flight of 852 feet, a great step forward for mankind.This prompted a huge surge in popular enthusiasm for flight, and a mere 8 years later in 1911 the first UK aerial post flight took place between Hendon and Windsor - a distance of just over twenty miles. The event was heavily promoted, with souvenir postcards and covers, and a special postmark. Huge crowds gathered to watch the arrival of the flight, such was its popularity.
Significant anniversaries of the flight were later celebrated and this display examines them.
The flight was celebrated just two years later in 1913 when it featured in a very scarce Australian series of Wills cigarette cards, subject "Royal Mail. The standard iconic image of the flight (as will be seen repeatedly) is a Farley biplane, but in fact most of the flights were carried out in the Bleriot monoplane pictured on card 46 (see page 1).