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Old 10th Aug 2008, 01:57
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Pam Campbell
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: australia
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Research from Australia

Hey all, I'm not really sure where to start and what thread to post on so I will write it here and hope one of the admin can move it to correct thread.
I have been doing my family tree / history and my husbands great grandfather was Charles Lindsay Campbell born 1863 in Queensland, Aus.
Information I already know is as follows, found on the internet.
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Other Australian's to travel to England over this period and gain pilot's licences were; Charles Lindsay-Campbell of Queensland (No. 220, 4 June 1912),


In the Beginning...
Probably the most important factor leading to the raising of a flying unit in the Australian Army was the formation of the Aerial League of Australia in Sydney on 28 April 1909. The meeting was organised by George Augustus Taylor (1872-1928), a man of wide interests and soon to be an honorary lieutenant in the Australian Intelligence Corps because of his glider flying and wireless experiments, and Major Charles Rosenthal (1875-1954), an architect and Citizen Force gunner. In the chair was Lawrence Hargrave (1850-1915), gentleman-inventor, who, among other things, had been researching human flight for a number of years and discovered that a curved upper surface of an aerofoil generates an increase in lift.
The Aerial League was a pressure group and one of its members, Charles Lindsay Campbell (1863-1912), secretary of the Queensland Branch, wrote to the editor of the Brisbane Courier on 12 October 1910 that:
"…aircraft at a few hundred feet could, with certainty, drop a most dangerous explosive down the thirty foot diameter funnel of one of the modern Dreadnoughts".
Campbell went on to suggest that military aviation should be developed in Australia and soon after he wrote to the Minister of Defence submitting a plan for a school of aviation and an aviation corps. (Campbell has the melancholy distinction of being the first Australian to die in an aircraft accident when his Bristol Monoplane stalled at 300 feet, near Brooklands Surrey, on 3 August 1912.)
Due to the agitation of the Aerial League and others, the Minister of Defence, Senator George Pearce (1870-1952), when in the UK for the 1911 Imperial Conference, visited Brooklands the home of British aviation, and decided there should be a flying school in the Defence Department. Given the distances, the communications of those days, the lack of technological knowledge, that the Royal Australian Navy was being raised and the Army was busy in setting-up and then administering a large universal training and cadet scheme, there was a fairly quick reaction to the Minister’s decision. Aircraft were ordered, two flying instructors (honorary lieutenants) and four mechanics were selected, an airfield was chosen (Point Cook, although, for a number of years, the address of the CentralFlyingSchool was Werribee), stores and equipment delivered and Military Orders issued.
The aircraft ordered from the UK on 3 July 1912 were two Deperdussins and two BE2a (BE for "Bleriot Experimental", later for "British Experimental") and, on 6 December 1912, one Bristol Boxkite



The Battle Below : Chapter 2

The Formation Of The Australian Flying Corps

What appears to be the first evidence of the interest of the Australian public in service aviation is contained in a letter to the editor of the Brisbane "Courier," of the 8th October, 1910, entitled "Admiral Henderson and Aviation." In this article, Mr. Charles Lindsay Campbell, the then secretary of the Queensland Aero Club, and honorary secretary of the Aero League of Australia, set out his views on the military value of aviation. He suggested that "about two dozen of the engineering and mechanical class should be at once distributed among the schools mentioned1, and they again after six months' study, to be redistributed among the Commonwealth." A few months later, on the 9th January, 1911, Campbell proposed to the then Minister for Defence (Senator G. F. Pearce) that a Commonwealth School of Aviation and Australian Aviation Corps should be established. His idea was that the school should consist of two sections, the first being open, on payment of a small fee to cover the expenses thereof, to all members of the general public interested in aviation matters, and the second being devoted to lectures and practical demonstrations of the principles of aeronautics and to practical gliding work. From members of the second section who passed the necessary examinations and practical tests and who were medically fit were to be selected the members of an Aviation Corps under the direct administration of the Minister for Defence, and it was suggested that within twelve months branches could be established in all States. The administrative staff proposed for this Corps was a Controller, one pilot and two mechanics and the aircraft equipment recommended comprised three aircraft and one Gnome-engined Bleriot monoplanes and two practice gliders, together with the necessary spares. Upon the advice of the Military Board, however, this proposal was not approved and it was decided that the advice of the War Office would be obtained before any steps were taken towards the formation of any military aviation unit.

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So from what i have obtained, he helped start Queensland aero club ( I have emailed them and they have no information or photos to help me ) and he was one of the people to get the Australian Army into the air.
He was killed at Brooklands , Surrey in UK. I have written to their air/motor museum but they didnt reply. Wondering if anyone on your side of the world could help me with some leads. I dont even know where he would be burried, here or over there.
Thanks for any help you may offer and sorry if I have abused your forums with all this spam for nothing.
Cheers Cat
Pam Campbell is offline