Aha! Dan Leno was George Wild Galvin. Among his family, he had Herbert Dan Galvin, born 1893. H D! Herbert Dan Galvin is in the 1911 census under that name. And he’s an Aeronautical Engineer. So, that solves the Leno part. Only the Metzgar part to go now. Thanks to Lazy8 for unlocking the puzzle.

Absolutely! Spot on. Thank you very much. There is a very similar image of him on the web.
Gilmour held French aviator’s certificate #75, so no certificate from the RAeC and therefore no image of him from that source.
Fascinating story – bit of a wild child and killed at Richmond 17 Feb 1912. The clipping of him in my initial post is from a larger photograph of Gilmour with his Bleriot monoplane with a JAP 35 hp engine at Lanark in the summer of 1910.

I’m pleased to report that we now have a positive identification for the church in the photograph. It is (or, rather, was) Christ Church Presbyterian Church on Castle Street in Worcester. There is a nice photograph of the church on Picasa under “The Changing Face of Worcester” at reference J0901221, number 39 of 48 images.

This means that we can confirm, with confidence, that the photograph, captioned Unionist Fete 1913, shows Gustav Hamel at Pitchcroft Racecourse, Worcester in 1913.

My thanks to everyone for contributing to this thread.

Mystery Aviator

Great call, barnstormer! I’m sure you’re correct. Everything ties together. Thank you very much indeed.

John Sowrey

My thanks to everyone who has joined in so far. The Sowreys are an amazing family, and it is great to see so much interest.

The story begins with John Sowrey, who was a Deputy Chief Inspector Of Inland Revenue. He had three sons, all of whom learned to fly and obtained Aviators’ Certificates during the course of the First World War:
— Frederick Sowrey (born 13 January 1892)
— John Sowrey (born 25 August 1893)
— William Sowrey (born 9 August 1894)

Frederick Sowrey downed Zeppelin L32 and there are lots of photos of him. It is his brother John who is possibly the chap in the photo above.

Frederick had a son, Frederick Beresford Sowrey (born 14 September 1922).

John had sons:
— John Adam Sowrey (born 5 January 1920), who died late last year
— James Alan Frederick Sowrey (born late 1921), who was shot down in June 1941

(I think this information is all OK, but I’m happy to be corrected, if wrong.)

For those of you who know and are in touch with Frederick Beresford Sowrey (or indeed any member of this extended family), I would love for you to ask him if he is able to confirm the identity of the pilot in the photograph as his Uncle John.

The country owes a huge debt of gratitude to this amazing family of aviators. Let’s do all we can to keep their memories alive.

I think it may very well be Jack Northrop. Thank you very much for that suggestion. I will now direct my enquiries to verify whether that is indeed the case (or otherwise).