Aviation and Shark Wrestling

While away on vacation I procured an illness that put me on the sidelines for several days. I really felt terrible and normally I would just chalk these up to “lost days”. But while languishing around in bed, awaiting a break in my fever, I did accomplish quite a bit. With my laptop, iphone and ipad at the ready (I am truly electronically addicted!) I made the most of it and began working on a couple of my genealogical brick walls. I had not one, but several tremendous breakthroughs and I will be sharing those in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

However, this post isn’t about me or my family. My dear sis phoned the other day while she was having lunch with her friend Katie. She had recently been made aware of several colorful family members and she wanted to know more. How do I get started, where do I look and what can I find, were the basic questions.

Katie knew that these people lived very exciting lives but not much more than that. Over the past 4 days Katie, my sister and I have spent quite a few hours researching these two and we have learned much. Even Katie complained of having a “genealogy hangover”. You know, when you fall down that rabbit hole of information and you just CAN’T go to bed now…..? Yeah. That hangover.

Joseph Joel Hammond (J.J. or Joe) was born in Wanganui, New Zealand circa 1885 to farming parents of modest means. He attended Wellington University for a time and quickly decided that wasn’t for him. Around 1906 he left NZ for the wilds of Alaska to work as a trapper. Apparently it wasn’t a fitting vocation so he moved to the gold fields in the Canadian Klondike. He struck gold when he struck out as a miner and ended up with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Circus due to his exemplary horsemanship.

On another continent lived a young woman, Ethelwyn Wilkinson. Born in 1887 in Seaford, Sussex, England she was the daughter of William, a builder, and  his wife Ada Wilkinson. It is supposed that at some point J.J. traveled with the circus to England and that is how he and Ethelwyn met. No matter, they were married 19 November 1909 at St. Leonard’s Church, Seaford.

Shortly after marrying, J.J. was  travelling in France and saw Louis Bleriot’s new aeroplane. Bleriot had recently made headlines by flying across the English Channel. Being the fearless devil he was, J.J. learned to fly in Reims.  On 26 November 1910, Hammond was awarded an Aviators Certificate by the Royal Aero Club Aviators (based at Piccadilly in London). He was the 32nd person to be issued a pilots licence in the United Kingdom. 

He soon returned home and  took one of the planes, a Bleriot monoplane named Britannia to New Zealand.  He was the first person to fly in that country and was employed by the government of New Zealand as their first pilot. 

J.J. also worked for the Bristol and Colonial Aircraft company as an instructor. After his arrival in Australia in December 1910, he demonstrated the Bristol Boxkite around the country showing that the Boxkite was an improved version of the early Henri Farman biplane. On 18 April 1911 while demonstrating the plane at Ascot Racecourse, Ethelwyn was a passenger and became the first woman in Australia to fly. Ascot Racecourse would later become the site of the present day Sydney airport.

On 22 April, 1911, she was interviewed and said: “I always feel quite comfy when I am in the bi-plane with my husband. When we start it is only like being in an ordinary passenger lift which has started a little bit quickly. It is a delightful experience. I am especially fond of motoring, aviation and shark-catching.”

Yeah! That’s my girl!

Ethelwyn and J.J. returned to Sussex and he was employed with the Eastbourne Aviation Company as a flying instructor.  He was quite the popular attraction as Flight Magazine in October 1912 reported that “Mr. Hammond has taken a holiday and so has disappointed many people anxious to see his wonderful exhibition flights”. It is said that he liked to buzz the golfers by flying over Willingdon Golf Links, race trains and fire a shotgun into a flock of sea birds. Quite a guy!

In time, World War I broke out and J.J. relocated to London as part of the Royal Flying Corps. It is assumed that he trained many fliers and flew many missions,  but without his military records we don’t know for sure. He was invited to the United States to take part in a British Air Mission demonstration to raise funds for the Fourth Liberty Loan War Bond Drive. He was returning to Indianapolis from the airfield in Greenfield on 22 September, 1918 when at about 5:30pm his Bristol Fighter F2B entered a right hand spin from approximately 600 feet.  The left wing struck a tree before crashing in a cornfield near the Indianapolis Speedway. Hammond and a passenger,  J. L. Kinder, a civilian, were killed on impact and LT. R. W. Pickett of the US Army was seriously injured but ultimately recovered.

At the funeral, Hammond’s coffin was draped with an American and British Flag. The Bishop of Indianapolis officiated the service and thousands attended, including a squad of American and British aviation officers. Carl Fisher, the founder of the Indianapolis Speedway graciously offered to house Hammond’s ashes in his own section of his family mausoleum until such time that the family could claim the remains after the war.

They have never been claimed and still reside in Carl Fisher’s mausoleum in Crown Hill cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana.

And what of Ethelwyn?

Not much more is known but that our motoring, aviatrix, shark-catcher remained in Seaford, Sussex and lived with her parents at Airedale House. She died in 1951 in Halisham. She and J.J. had no children and she never remarried.

If you know anything further of these people or their families, please feel free to contact me. Katie’s journey into family research is just beginning but like all of us we would delight in making contact with a living relative.