Hayden is a society member and one of few living who can justifiably claim that his father was a true pioneer of early aviation. He has taken his father’s material, including his extensive logbooks, and combined it with further research to produce a fascinating account of Bill Lawford’s life in aviation.

Eardley Hayden ‘Bill’ Lawford learned to fly with the Ewen School at Hendon and gained his RAeC Certificate 442 in March 1913. Almost immediately, he teamed up with Maurice Ducrocq to run a short lived school at Brooklands and when that closed entered into a partnership with TK Wong to build a two-seat biplane, the Tong Mei. The outbreak of war put paid to that venture and Bill Lawford enlisted in the RFC as an Air Mechanic 2nd Class. He ended up in France with 5 Squadron and spent the winter of 1914-15 servicing its machines. He returned home on leave to find a letter requesting his services as a pilot but, because he had already enlisted and due to his lowly rank, he was not eligible for service flying training and served a a ground instructor at Netheravon and Farnborough.

He eventually joined 1 RAS during the summer of 1915 but was temporarily put out of action following a crash. Flying training re-commenced in 1916, even through he had some 150 hours experience. After another spell with 1 RAS, he joined 45 Squadron before being posted to the BEF and 7 Squadron. His stay with that unit was brief and he went to 5 Squadron in July, amassing more than 200 hours of operational flying before he was posted home in January 1917. His remaining RFC/RAF service began at the SARD, where he tested 922 aeroplanes and brought his flying time up to more than 900 hours. His AFC was gazetted in January 1919, during which month he was posted to 1 (Communications) Squadron to fly DH4s and HP 0/400s until demobilised that June.

Hayden uses the first quarter of the text to relate his father’s story to this point. He gives a flavour of pre-war flying and a good outline of Bill’s time on 7 and 5 Squadrons and that at Farnborough, with relevant extracts from the ‘remarks’ column of his logbooks. More could have been said, but the man’s major achievements were yet to come.

Bill Lawford joined the Airco subsidiary, Aircraft Transport and Travel Ltd, following his demobilisation. He flew the full range of Airco types operated by that company, demonstrating some to continental operators. His principal claim to fame came on 25 August 1919, the date from which regular Hounslow-Le Bourget flights were permitted. Both AT&T and Handley-Page Transport wanted the honour of being the first to complete this new service and the achievement went to Bill in DH4A G-EAJC, a beautiful painting of that machine being the book’s colour plate. The events of that day and the others of the first week’s services are well detailed and illustrated.

The demise of AT&T is well related, with a finger justifiably pointed at the government of the day. Bill had given up flying before that happened, ill health necessitating this, and, after two months of ground work he resigned from the company.

He returned to aviation in 1923, to take up employment in the ‘Direction Finding Cabin’ at Croydon Airport. The development of air traffic control was pioneered here and Bill had a major role in this until his transfer to Lympne in 1936. His work, until retirement in 1945 and death ten years later is detailed and the names of his associates read as list of who-was-who in early civilian aviation. Such associations may have extended beyond the grave, as Hayden details in the eighth chapter. 

Hayden provides useful appendices; extracts from AT&T’s Traffic Book and his father’s logbooks, photographs and histories of AT&T’s machines, brief biographies of the company’s pilots, copies of relevant documents, list of personnel at Croydon and the aircraft types flown.

This is a brilliant little book, definitely a labour of love, full of interesting facts and a snip at the asking price. I wholeheartedly recommend it to our members.