Brocklehurst

Robert Brocklehurst was born in approximately 1864, in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, Lancashire, the eldest son of merchant Robert Brocklehurst and Anne Cleve Brocklehurst (née Reynolds). He attended Harrow school and then Sandhurst, after which he was gazetted into the 2nd Battalion Somersetshire Light Infantry, with the rank of Lieutenant, on 6 February 1884. He was promoted to Captain on 14 June 1890 and to Major on 3 February 1904, at which rank he retired from the military on 17 October 1908.

Brocklehurst retired to Osborne House, Taunton, Somerset, but by March 1909 was living at Ling Howe, Windemere, Westmoreland. That year he was granted Patent Nos.5662, for a scheme to provide lateral and pitch control by twisting the tail of an aircraft, and 24902 for wings of Etrich style to have automatic stability. Brocklehurst built a machine based on the latter patent, believed to have been fitted with an Anzani engine. F.B. Fowler, who later ran the Eastbourne Aviation Co., was probably responsible for the design of the landing chassis and other aspects of its construction.

This machine appeared at Eastchurch in January 1912, reported by Goodall and Tagg [1] as being constructed at Windermere, although Brocklehurst had constructed a shed at Eastchurch in January 1910, so presumably at least its final erection occurred there. Other than taxying, the machine appears never to have flown and, according to Goodall and Tagg, was later transferred to Windermere, where it was fitted with 'roller floats', possibly of the type covered by Patent 6999 of 1909, granted to Kitchen and Storey, but nothing more appears to be recorded.

In The Aeroplane dated 2 May 1912 it was stated that Brocklehurst was building ‘monoplane of sorts with wings apparently founded on the idea of those of a bat’. Brocklehurst's was granted Patent No.26810 in 1911 for 'Batlike' wings in either biplane or monoplane form, which could be folded, so most likely this was a new design based on that patent. Once again, nothing more appears to be recorded. In The Aeroplane dated 10 April 1913, it was stated that 'Major Brocklehurst's hydromonoplane with Bat's wings' was under construction.

Major Robert Brocklehurst died on 31 October 1927 in Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, Dorset.