By: SadOleGit - 6th April 2009 at 13:47
A woman of some spirit, especially for the time. Googling gave this page showing Miss Trehawke-Davies:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1912/1912%20-%200485.html
By: Willip26 - 3rd April 2009 at 23:43
Eleanor Trehawke Davies
Miss Trehawke Davies (sometimes spelt without the “e”), accodring to The Times died in London in November 1915 but news of which ,”in accordance with her expressed wish” , was not released until January 1916.
Before her death her monoplane was donated to the Royal Navy for use by the Naval Air Service.
So the romantic notion that Miss Trehawke Davies and Gustav Hamel disappeared together appears to be without foundation.
Hamel was also associated with the american Harriet Quimby, the first women to cross the channel by air. It is said that he tried to dissuade her from the attempt an even offered to don her distinctive purple flying suit and take her place – an offer that was firmly dismissed.
Early aviators were the film/pop/rock stars of their day it seems. I like also the story of the australian H.G. Hawker who, following his failed attempt in the Daily Mail Waterplane Race in August 1913 was chased knee deep into Lough Shinny by female autograph hunters! I wonder if they took any parts of his shattered aeroplane as souvenirs.
Just missed the anniversary (yesterday) of the flight of Gustav Hamel and Miss Eleanor Trehawke Davies, said to have been the first woman to have crossed the Channel by air, on 2nd April 1912.
I am therefore confused at the mention of Harriet Quimby, but take it she was the first to fly the Channel on her own? Anybody know any more details of this flight and when this was?
The March 2009 issue of the Shoreham Airport News reports that a performance of ‘Plain Janes’, a show featuring poetry, music, song, dance and images of the early history of Shoreham Airport, the oldest civil airport in the country, and celebrating the early aviators and designers, including a character loosely based on Miss Trehawke Davies, is due to be performed on the afternoon of Saturday 11th April at the Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham High Street.
Tickets at a very reasonable £8 can apparently be obtained from the Ropetackle tel no. 01273 464440 or via www.ropetacklecentre.co.uk.
Wicked Willip :diablo:
By: Gustavsgirl - 16th October 2008 at 20:56
Gladys Cooper
Gladys’ autobiography was entitled simply ‘Gladys Cooper’ and was published in about 1930 by Hutchinson, and is now very hard to find. She does rather confusingly jump from one subject to another throughout, but admitted in it that she and Gustav Hamel were ‘excellent friends’ (as in more than good it’s naturally presumed – and most readers perhaps would come to the same conclusion as to what more than good friends are). She also publicized a rather intimate note he had sent her. In her 1979 biography, her grandson Sheridan Morley mentioned her ‘intimate friendship’ with Gustav Hamel, but did not elaborate, other than to detail her sueing a London newspaper (in January 1915) for exposing a friendship that was strongly indicated as being something more than should exist between a young married woman and a youthful single man. Young Mr. Hamel’s name was still being bandied about as a co-respondent in her divorce some eight years after his death (when Gladys did eventually divorce her first husband – on grounds of his adultery!) To add fuel to the fire of speculation, Miss Trehawke Davies (Mr. Hamel’s closest friend) was very ill and off-the-scene during the early part of 1914, though whether his association with Miss Cooper which was occurring at that very time had anything to do with it is anyone’s guess. Probably it was.
By: avion ancien - 28th September 2008 at 22:51
Miss Trehawke Davies (always with an ‘e’ if spelled correctly, as it was one of her father’s middle names) died on 22nd November 1915, almost 18 months to the day after the death of Gustav Hamel. She was just 35. Miss Davies had lifelong health problems, and her death was due to, basically, heart failure. According to a mutual friend of theirs, she never got over his death – though they were not particularly close at the time he was killed. Possibly because of his (alleged) affair with Gladys Cooper, which Miss Cooper always denied. She did, however, devote four pages of her autobiography to Gustav Hamel!
Can you please post details of her autobiography?
By: Gustavsgirl - 5th September 2008 at 19:28
Miss Trehawke Davies
Miss Trehawke Davies (always with an ‘e’ if spelled correctly, as it was one of her father’s middle names) died on 22nd November 1915, almost 18 months to the day after the death of Gustav Hamel. She was just 35. Miss Davies had lifelong health problems, and her death was due to, basically, heart failure. According to a mutual friend of theirs, she never got over his death – though they were not particularly close at the time he was killed. Possibly because of his (alleged) affair with Gladys Cooper, which Miss Cooper always denied. She did, however, devote four pages of her autobiography to Gustav Hamel!
By: Arabella-Cox - 25th August 2008 at 15:30
Miss Trehawke Davies (sometimes spelt without the “e”), accodring to The Times died in London in November 1915 but news of which ,”in accordance with her expressed wish” , was not released until January 1916.
Before her death her monoplane was donated to the Royal Navy for use by the Naval Air Service.
So the romantic notion that Miss Trehawke Davies and Gustav Hamel disappeared together appears to be without foundation.
Hamel was also associated with the american Harriet Quimby, the first women to cross the channel by air. It is said that he tried to dissuade her from the attempt an even offered to don her distinctive purple flying suit and take her place – an offer that was firmly dismissed.
Early aviators were the film/pop/rock stars of their day it seems. I like also the story of the australian H.G. Hawker who, following his failed attempt in the Daily Mail Waterplane Race in August 1913 was chased knee deep into Lough Shinny by female autograph hunters! I wonder if they took any parts of his shattered aeroplane as souvenirs.
By: Dave Homewood - 24th August 2008 at 14:20
Here are some Papers Past links with news about Miss Trehawke Davis
And this one reporting her death in January 1916
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&srpos=2&cl=search&d=GRA19160124.2.42&e=——-en–1—-0trehawke-all
By: avion ancien - 24th August 2008 at 14:04
Early aviator, Gustav Hamel, disappeared en route to Hendon from Paris on 23.5.14 whilst flying his new 80 hp Morane-Saulnier monoplane. Was any trace of the pilot or his aeroplane ever found?
It’s just occurred to me that no-one has been able to say anything about Hamel’s Morane-Saulnier. So presumably it remains somewhere beneath the Channel. As an improbable recovery project, perhaps someone should suggest it to TIGHAR!
By: avion ancien - 24th August 2008 at 13:58
Gladys Cooper may not have been the only one – a clip from “Early Birds” by H C Miller. (Miller was employed by Sopwith 1913/1914 and went on to found Macrobertson Miller Airlines in Australia in the late 1920s).
I thought that it was a Blériot that Miss Trehawke Davis owned and which was one of two she presented to the RNAS – as numbers 902 and 903 – at the outbreak of WW1. If this is correct – and assuming that it was not a posthumous gift – I can’t see how she could have gone down with Hamel, an event which occurred more than two months before the outbreak of WW1. Can anyone more knowledgeable than me cast light on the life and fate of the lady?
By: flyernzl - 24th August 2008 at 01:48
Gladys Cooper may not have been the only one – a clip from “Early Birds” by H C Miller. (Miller was employed by Sopwith 1913/1914 and went on to found Macrobertson Miller Airlines in Australia in the late 1920s).
By: Arabella-Cox - 21st August 2008 at 14:16
According to press reports Hamel flew Churchill from Hendon to Eastchurch on the 17th May 1914 and later the same day took him flying in the Sheerness/Isle of Grain area. It was reported that Hamel performed six loops before setting off (on his own) for London. “The Times” (amongst other newspapers) later printed the denial issued that WSC was also in the aeroplane when the manoeuvres were carried out. Ostensibly these were demonstration flights for the benefit of Naval pilots stationed on the east coast.
Churchill had arranged a similar later demonstration for Naval pilots at Hamble but this is the appointment that Hamel was unable to keep with the First Sea Lord.
In his book “Thoughts and Adventures” Churchill waxes lyrical about Hamel and adds regarding the Sheerness visit, “I spent a delightful day flying with him. Morning afternoon and evening we sailed about in his little Voisin monoplane.” You can draw your own conclusions.
It is more than likely that WSC took advantage and took flying instruction from Hamel but he had other instructors too (including Longmore, Samson, Wildman-Lushington, Spenser Grey, Jack Scott and Cyril Patteson) but the great man failed to master the art and never flew solo. After two serious crashes in 1919 he gave up.
Returning to Hamel – he was making news even after his disappearance. His effigy was placed in Madame Tussaud’s, his name was mentioned in the divorce proceedings of actress Gladys Cooper and there was even a rumour in 1915 that he was alive and flying on the side of enemy!
By: Dave Homewood - 21st August 2008 at 12:07
Was Hamel teaching Churchill to fly? Churchill was certainly learning to fly just before the beginning of the war and I think Hamel was somehow involved. Here’s a few reports linking them as friends at least
By: Arabella-Cox - 21st August 2008 at 11:05
My apologies for any confusion caused by my late night hand/eye co-ordination. The location I should have typed was Point Alprecht (not Albrecht) though it would appear that the “t” is a spurious addition in the report (and that’s why I could not find it!).
Witnesses said that on leaving Hardelot, Hamel headed toward Calais so Cap d’Aprech fits the bill especially as there is (was?) a light house there which the fishermen are likely to have used as a location reference.
It is also interesting to note Hamel states that he was heading for Hendon to take part in the Aerial Derby around London. Meawhile at Southampton Water awaiting Hamel’s arrival there was the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill …. but is that another story?
The New Zealand press states that it was WSC who instigated the search for Hamel by the Navy ….
By: 25deg south - 21st August 2008 at 10:34
Interesting to read all this as it has apparently corrected Hamilton Fyfe (timekeeper for Bleriot’s 1909 flight) who, later in “Aerial Wonders of Our Time” (1930’s ) wrote of Latham after his two dunkings in the Channel in 1909:
” He flew for a short while longer, then was killed hunting in Africa.”
By: Dave Homewood - 21st August 2008 at 10:18
More here
By: avion ancien - 21st August 2008 at 10:13
I’ve just looked at my Michelin map of France and there is a Cap d’Alprech just to the SW of Boulogne. So it looks as if edskarf was right with only the spelling being a little wrong.
By: Dave Homewood - 21st August 2008 at 10:10
and
By: avion ancien - 21st August 2008 at 10:06
Here is a report in the Evening Post newspaper from Wellington, New Zealand dated the 10th of July 1914 which would have been received a day or two after European papers got it, so that discounts the 13th as the day his body was found.
There are many reports on Hamel’s activities on Papers Past.
Thanks for the hyperlink to that newspaper report. It supports my suspicion about the geographical wild goose chase as it refers to the body being found off Boulogne – in terms of navigation, a more likely location!
By: Dave Homewood - 21st August 2008 at 09:55
Here is a report in the Evening Post newspaper from Wellington, New Zealand dated the 10th of July 1914 which would have been received a day or two after European papers got it, so that discounts the 13th as the day his body was found.
There are many reports on Hamel’s activities on Papers Past.
By: avion ancien - 21st August 2008 at 09:50
L’Ile de Noirmoutier is part of the Vendée and off the west coast of France. So if Hamel was flying from Paris to Hendon, how did his body end up so far away from the likely course of his flight? It can’t have been tidal drift (unless there were some very peculiar tides in 1914!) and so experienced an aviator is unlikely to have flown SW from Paris when his true course would have been NNW. Furthermore the distance between Paris and l’Ile de Noirmoutier is such that he is unlikely to have made the coast (in a 1914 Morane-Saulnier) without having to land to refuel. I believe that there were conspiracy theories circulating at the time (it was 1914 and Hamel’s father was German by birth). Were these fueled by the body being found so far from where it should have been? Or are we on a geographical wild goose chase? Perhaps there is Pointe Alberte (or Albrecht) on the French Channel coast?
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August 20, 2008 at 6:33 pm