The 1911 Flight
The Story
On February 18, 1911, amidst Maha Kumbh, witnessed by over a lakh people, a 23-year-old French pilot Henri Pequet (1888-1974) carried the first official mail flown by an airplane. Henri Pequet was in India then flying demonstration flights. He carried a sack with about 6,500 letters and cards on his Humber-Sommer biplane; the imperative to keep the load light restricted the number. Around 5:30 PM the two-seater bi-plane soared into the beautiful auburn sky from the Polo field in Allahabad. Befitting the challenges of early aviation Henri had to carry a compass instrument tied to his lap.
The aircraft flew for about 13 minutes covering approximately 13 kms, crossed the Yamuna River, and landed at Naini Junction alongside the compound wall of the Central Prison on the outskirts of Allahabad. Unlike take-off when Henri descended, there was no crowd. He merely handed over the mail bag to the solitary post office official present there and returned to Allahabad.
The mail on the aircraft was cancelled by a special circular postmark with the inscription “First Aerial Post, 1911, U. P. Exhibition Allahabad.” The specially designed postmark also featured a line drawing of an aircraft hovering above some mountains. To commemorate the special occasion the post marks were applied with magenta ink instead of the conventional black colour, though a few black specimens reportedly exist. Furthermore, the postal authorities destroyed the special die used for the postmarks to maintain the exclusivity of the event.
Thereafter, the letters were all dispatched to their respective destinations by road / ship / train, as appropriate. Since the occasion was special it was witnessed by the elite including Maharajah of Benares and Kishangarh; letters were addressed to people all over the globe including to the then monarch King George V. Philatelic chatter states that Motilal Nehru too sent a letter to Jawahar Lal, who was then pursuing higher education at the Cambridge in the UK.
The idea of Airmail was conceived by British aviation pioneer Walter G Windham (knighted in 1923) who was invited to India by the organizers of the Allahabad Industrial and Commercial Exhibition. Whilst he was staying at Allahabad, the chaplain of Allahabad's Holy Trinity Church, one Reverend W.E.S. Holland, approached Windham to help him raise funds for a new youth hostel in Allahabad.
Windham felt that an Airmail flight would not only help the cause of the Church but also will garner publicity for the exhibition and set an example of rapid and safe transportation of mails. Those interested in availing the service were asked to send their mail addressed and stamped to the chaplain of the Holy Trinity Church. A nominal sum of six annas was sought as donation for the new hostel building. Only cards or letters weighing less than one ounce were accepted. Windham approached the postal authorities for their consent and arranged to transmit some mail in the flight. Geoffrey Clarke, Postmaster General of the United Provinces and the Director of the Post Office, India allowed the mail to be officially received and cancelled prior to transport and granted approval for the issuance of a special cachet to commemorate the occasion.
In a subsequent interview to a magazine, Pequet had mentioned that he had flown the machine just at a height of 120 to 150 feet from the grounds and he was rather doubtful when he had to pass over the river Yamuna. Pequet died on March 13, 1974 at the age of 86 in Vichy, France.
United Provinces as it was called in those days is the present-day Uttar Pradesh. The venue of fair at the Polo grounds was chosen to garner more gate collections by display of additional flying machine. Windham’s planes – six of them – were built by Britain’s Humber company and arrived by a merchant ship, SS Persia, to Bombay. The planes, in semi-knocked-down condition, were to be assembled later, included two biplanes and four monoplanes. Once in Bombay, these were loaded in special wagons and taken by train to Allahabad.
It is said that the date of the flight had to be postponed because landing site had to be cleaned by removing thorns and shrubs enabling the flying machine to land safely without puncturing the tyres. At the behest of the senior officials gathered at U.P. Exhibition grounds the prisoners of Naini spruced up the site for making it as a good tarmac.
Based on this successful experiment in India, the world's first scheduled airmail post service took place in the United Kingdom between the London suburb of Hendon, North London and the Postmaster General's office in Windsor, Berkshire, on September 9, 1911, as part of the celebrations for King George V's coronation.
However, the Allahabad Naini flight was not the first-time airplanes flew in India. The honour of the first flight goes to Madras-based confectioner-cum-hotelier and flight enthusiast from Messina, Italy, Giacomo D’Angelis. D'Angelis tested his aeroplane in Pallavaram, arranged a public viewing in March 1910 and made its flight on March 26, 1910. Allahabad too was witness to a few early flights. On December 10, 1910, Englishman Keith Davis flew a Blériot monoplane from Polo Exhibition Grounds across the Ganga and Yamuna, round the fort and back to the flying ground; the trip being made at a height of about 600 ft. This was followed by the first official flight on December 17, 1910. In this flight, Henri Pequit flew a biplane with the son of Maharaja of Benares on board, the first Indian passenger.
Another aviation group led by the Belgian Baron de Caters with four bi-planes and two monoplanes reached Calcutta on December 12, 1910. Jules Tyke, the pilot of the group, made a 12-minute flight at Tollygunge Golf Club, a Calcutta suburb. On December 21, 1910, Baron de Caters took off with a passenger, Mrs. NC Sen, daughter-in-law of great social reformer Keshav Chandra Sen.
Finally, another set of aviation enthusiasts from the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company led by Faranell Thurstan, along with well-known French pilot, Henri Jullerot reached Calcutta with three aeroplanes of “Boxkite” variety (Humber-Sommer Biplane). On January 6, 1911, Jullerot made an impressive flight in front of a mammoth crowd at Calcutta Turf Club. According to Flight magazine of March 4, 1911, over two million people witnessed the demonstration.
References:
1) https://www.earlyaviators.com/epequet.htm
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Windham
3) Air Marshal Bharat Kumar, A History of Military Aviation, Feb 10, 2020
4) Anu Kumar, The story of first men (and women) to fly in India, Mar 14, 2017
