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Sir George Cayley the Founder of British Aeronautical Science
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Extract
It is, I suppose, known to most of those present in this lecture hall that the Royal Aeronautical Society was founded in 1866–to be exact the first preliminary meeting was held, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Argyll, on January 12th, though the first meeting of members did not take place until the 27th of June following. It is, therefore, within a few days of 70 years ago that the Society came into being. That is a full and honourable age, and with it goes the distinction–in which we are entitled to take some pride–of being the oldest Aeronautical Society in the world. The anniversary may not arouse the enthusiasm usually associated with the more youthful glamour of a silver or a diamond jubilee. On the other hand it denotes another decade of progress in the growth of aeronautical science, and of even more marked developments in the application of that science, on which grounds alone it deserves passing notice.
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References
1 See “The Royal Aeronautical Society: A Survey, 1866-1929,” by the present author, Air Annual of the British Empire for 1929.
2 Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, Extra Publications, No. 3, Heffer & Sons, Ltd., Cambridge, 1933.
3 Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 59, 1899, p. 58.
4 Op. cit., Vol. 39, 1894, p. 15.
5 Cayley took out a patent for his “Revolving Railroad” in 1825, No. 5260.
6 The quotation is from a letter to R. B. Taylor, written by Cayley in 1842. But in his article published in Nicholson's Journal, Vol. 24, 1809, the date is given as 1796.
7 See Lecornu, J. La Navigation Ae>ienne, Paris, 1903, p. 95.
8 In his Contribution to the Bulletin of the Soc. A. et M. de France in 1853, Cayley referred to the flying top merely as sold some years ago “for the amusement of children in London, and probably in Paris.”
9 Ball, W. W. R., “Short History of Mathematics,” 1912, p. 438.
10 Cayley took out a patent for his air engine in 1837 (No. 7351, Improvements in the Apparatus for Propelling Carriages [and] other purposes).
11 Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy, Vol. 24, 1809, p. 164, and Vol. 25, 1810, pp. 81 and 161.
12 Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine, Vol. 47, 1816, pp. 81 and 321, and Vol. 50, 1817, p. 27.
13 Amongst the Cayley Papers is a bill for £40, being the cost of materials and making, but there is no record of results.
14 Mechanics' Magazine, Vol. 26, 1837, p. 417.
15 Mechanics' Magazine, Vol. 38, 1843, pp. 263 and 273
16 Hart, Ivor B., “The Mechanical Investigations of Leonardo da Vinci,” 1925, Chapters VII and VIII.
17 Davy, M. J. B., “Henson and Stringfellow: Their Work in Aeronautics, 1840-68,” Science Museum, 1931, p. 12.
18 Wenham, F. H., “Aerial Locomotion,” in the first Annual Report of the Aeronautical Society for 1866, p. 43,
19 Dollfus, C, and H. Bouche, “Histoire de l'Aeronautique,” Paris, 1932, p. 55.