Barnes
George Arthur Barnes was born on 19 July 1883, Hoxton,
London, in the Admiral Keppel, one of his father’s many pubs in and around London. Starting cycle racing competitively
in 1901, the progression to motorcycling was natural and by the end of 1903 he was purely a motorcycle racer. In early 1903
George gained employment as a professional rider for the BAT motorcycle manufacturing company. Between 1904 and 1905 in partnership
with George Wilton he manufactured and sold motorcycles trading as George A. Barnes & Co.; the partnership was dissolved
on 17 August 1905.
In September 1909 it was announced in the Daily Mail that he would attempt to win the £1000
prize for the first British machine to fly over a circular mile piloted by a British aviator. On 11 October 1909 the Barnes
monoplane succeeded on in flying for a distance of well over a mile and a half, very nearly completing a circle, at Abbey
Wood, near Woolwich. Barnes kept the machine fairly close to the ground, and this probably accounted for the incident that
brought this trial flight to a conclusion when a gust of wind caused his crashing into a ditch.
In May 1910
he joined the staff of Humber Motor Company Ltd. as a pilot and gained his RAeC Aviators Certificate, No. 16 on 21 June that year. Over the next couple of years was busy
flying demonstration and exhibition flights for Humber all over the country. At the Folkestone International Air Meeting on
28 September 1910 he suffered a serious accident, leaping from his aircraft from an altitude of 30 feet and suffering
a fractured skull and broken left wrist.
Barnes died of pneumonia on 1 February 1919 at Paddington, London.
Project Data
Project No | Type
No | Name | Alternative Name(s) | Year | Spec
(Requirement) | Status | Qty | Description | References |
| |
Monoplane | | 1909 | |
Proto |
1 |
1S, 1E tractor monoplane | 1,2 |
Project References - British Aircraft
Before The Great War, Michael H. Goodall and Albert E. Tagg (Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2001)
- British
Aircraft 1809-1914, Peter Lewis (Putnam, 1962)
Total Barnes Production 1
|