Powered-Flight-Before-The-Wrights Claims
Taken by Kitty Hawk life guard John T. Daniels, this photograph, one of the most famous and significant images in human history shows the moment when the Wright Brothers' Flyer first gets airborne on 17 December 1903. With the countless hours of research that the Wrights carried out that led to that moment not being replicated by Watson, it is ludicrous to believe he successfully flew a powered aeroplane that same year. The Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland.
Note: This text, written by me also appears on the Preston Watson Wikipedia page.
​
Preston Watson's achievements, although not spectacular are today regarded with scepticism because of the erroneous claims of powered-flight-before-the-Wrights in the summer of 1903 that originated from his younger brother James. According to Alistair W. Blair and Alistair Smith in The Pioneer Flying Achievements of Preston Watson, James Watson began collating information on the claim in a letter to the Science Museum, London dated 21 October 1949.
In the 15 December 1953 issue of the Manchester Guardian newspaper, James had an article published referencing the claim, although it wasn't the first public acknowledgement of it. Following this, James approached the Royal Aeronautical Society via a joint dinner with the Royal Aero Club at the Dorchester Hotel, London, commemorating 50 years since the Wright Brothers' first powered flight on 17 December 1903, with evidence, including photographs and eye-witness accounts that Preston Watson flew a powered aeroplane before the Wright Brothers.
A further article appeared in the February 1954 issue of Aeronautics magazine titled "The Watson History", in which James re-iterated his claim, although the magazine's editor cautiously advised readers that; "we would say that we are not convinced that Preston Watson can upset existing priority claims for controlled and sustained flight."
Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and professional aviation researcher Charles Gibbs-Smith vigorously investigated the Watson claim. The presentation of Gibbs-Smith's findings to him eventually forced a change of tack from Watson the Younger. Published in the December 1955 issue of Aeronautics magazine titled "A pioneer in Scotland", James changed his story from that published in the same magazine previously, stating that "Preston's first aeroplane was without an engine" and that "trial flights were made at Errol in the summer of 1903". In a letter to Gibbs-Smith, James also wrote, "I make no claim that the 'machine' Preston used at Errol in 1903 was a powered machine."
The "Wright Type" Glider
​
This confession of sorts gave rise to rumours that Preston had built a "Wright Type" glider at that time, although no such thing had appeared before. A so-called reliable source was found in a close friend of the Watson family, former head of Kings College Dental Department, dental surgeon John Bell Milne, who claimed to have seen Preston's earliest flying machine, but had not witnessed it in flight. In correspondence with Gibbs-Smith, Milne later described the aircraft as,
"...definitely a glider, it had skids. It was of normal biplane build, both wings in the same span. It had an elevator out front." In an interview he gave in 1961, Milne remembered that Watson constructed his glider in, "...late 1903 or early 1904", at the time he and Preston, "...were attending physics classes at University College [Dundee]."
Link to page analysing the so-called "Wright Type" glider
​
Peculiarly, in a letter to Gibbs-Smith dated 15 August 1957, James Watson discredits Milne's testimony above, advising that because he was not present in 1903, he could not have seen the machine that he and Preston were testing was a rocking-wing aeroplane, criticising the fact that Milne saw a biplane glider that had a front-mounted elevator. Owing to himself claiming that Preston had flown an unpowered aircraft that year in Aeronautics magazine two years earlier and in the later letter to Gibbs-Smith, one wonders whether James was aware of the discrepancies in his own testimonies, as one by one his claims were disproved.
That James Watson publicly contradicts himself on more than one occasion makes the assertion that Preston Watson built a glider, or any aircraft in 1903 questionable, since such a thing has only existed on the basis of James's misguided words in these articles and letters from his own hand.
​
Only after being pressured by Gibbs-Smith after first making his claims in 1953 did James admit that the aircraft Preston flew in 1903 was a glider. Prior to this admission, there was never any mention of a Watson built glider, neither by James, the eyewitnesses James presented in support of his original claim, nor significantly, by Preston himself.
Exactly when Preston carried out his first flights in this aircraft is the crux of the matter in the eyes of James's supporters. For any claimant to powered flight earlier than the Wrights, the date of the Wright's first powered flight (17 December 1903) is when such flights must pre-date. It is therefore convenient for anyone recalling such an event some fifty years after it allegedly took place to quote the year as 1903 or earlier. It is also notable that none of the eyewitnesses that James interviewed whilst preparing his case for Watson's powered flights ever mentioned that they saw a glider flying at Errol; all of them saw a powered aeroplane. Only in Milne was there a recollection of a Watson glider and even then, he never saw it being flown.
Pioneer French aviation researcher Clément Ader 's Avion III suspended from the ceiling of the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris. As with Watson, Ader's claim to powered flight before the Wrights can be discredited through sheer lack of evidence, as well as improbability owing to his machine's design and the means by which it allegedly got airborne - by racing round a circular track instead of a straight runway. As with Watson, Ader's retrospective claim is supported by over-zealous fellow countrymen and few else. While striking in appearance, the biomechanical beauty of Ader's design did not bear fruit in terms of airworthiness. Author
Debated Claims
​
At the inquest into Preston's untimely death on 30 June 1915, his father stated that his son, "...had taken a great interest in flying for the past seven years", suggesting that the year in which he was aware that Preston begun his fascination with flight was 1908, the year in which Wilbur Wright first flew in Europe and news of the Wright Brother's exploits became available to the public at large. Evidently however, he had demonstrated an interest in aviation before 1908, based on the fact that he had published a patent for flying machines a year earlier, but examining these draws the conclusion that his ideas at that time were way off the mark when it came to an understanding of what constituted a successful aircraft.
​
Although Watson applied for a patent for flying machines in late 1907 however, had an aircraft been built that incorporated his ideas, with all the will in the world it never would have left the ground. This is another fact that flies in the face of a Watson built flying machine of any sort in 1903. Why would he produce such naïve work if his prior research into methods of achieving flight had been successful?
Another cause for debate is the claim that Preston Watson approached celebrated Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont in 1906 and purchased from him a Dutheil Chalmers engine.
In 1955, Milne made a personal assertion to Charles Gibbs-Smith that the year the motor was purchased was 1906. This could not have been possible, since Dutheil Chalmers & Cie did not construct their first aero-engine until 1907. In a later interview Milne changed the date to a year later, thus bringing into question his earlier statements' validity.
​
Photographs show a Dutheil Chalmers motor fitted to Watson's first rocking wing aircraft, but Gibbs-Smith later presented these to M. Charles Dolfuss, Director of the Musee de L'Air at Le Bourget, Paris who confirmed it as a 1908 or 1909 four cylinder 40 hp Dutheil Chalmers motor. If Watson acquired the Dutheil Chalmers engine from Santos-Dumont, the earliest date the purchase could have taken place was 1908.
​
A further false statement made by James was that Preston had the No. 3 shipped to France and entered into a competition, in which it won a safety award. No evidence of this can be found anywhere. The only competition in France Preston entered any of his aeroplanes in was the Concours de La Sécurité en Aéroplanes, in which his No.3 aeroplane was disqualified. Some sources quote the date in which Watson's No.3 won the safety prize was 1913, but the Concours held between 1 January and 1 July 1914 was the first of its kind.
The Richard Pearse memorial on the roadside at Waitohi, New Zealand commemorating Pearse's attempts at powered flight, which he carried out in 1909, not 1902/1903 as the memorial states and his modern day supporters continuously assert. New Zealand aviation pioneer Pearse is subject to similar controversy as Watson, with the only supporting evidence being eyewitnesses who recorded their version of what they saw fifty years later. In common with each other's case, both Pearse and Watson's modern day supporters are subject to severe bouts of nationalism, which affects the veracity of their stance. Ultimately, however valiant Pearse and Watson's aeronautical efforts, they eventually came to nought and the two aviators influenced no one. Author
Eyewitness Testimonies
​
As with most claims of powered-flight-before-the-Wrights, the only supporting evidence James Watson produced was that of eyewitnesses. Like other claimants, the eyewitness accounts James supplied are inconsistent with one another and were made at least fifty years after the alleged events took place. In this respect the Watson case draws parallels with that of New Zealander Richard Pearse. In a letter dated 19 December 1959 to one G. Bolt Esq. (George Bruce Bolt, New Zealand pioneer aviator, engineer and researcher), after he had submitted information about Pearse to Charles Gibbs-Smith, the latter advises Bolt to be wary of eyewitness claims. With regards to the Watson case, he states that after the story and photographs were published in 1953:
"…the late J.Y. Watson admitted that his great edifice was false, and this after producing eyewitness to the actual event. The eyewitness who tells you what he saw fifty or more years after is, as often as not, completely unreliable; and this was driven home in the Watson case. People simply do not remember without prejudice."
​
It is worth remembering that in the 15 May 1914 issue of Flight magazine, Preston himself stated that, in his own words, "these gentlemen, the Wrights, were the first to fly in a practical way", and at no time during his life did he ever contradict that statement. By contrast, James' and others' testimonies to the dubious claims of Preston's powered-flight-before-the-Wrights are riddled with inconsistencies, changes of facts and general errors. Bearing this in mind, it is difficult to refute Preston's own words on the matter.
​
Confirmation from articles in the Dundee Courier in 1910 confirming completion dates of Watson's first and second aeroplanes pour cold water on the suggestion that he built and flew rocking wing aircraft any earlier. Yet the rumours persist, with no small thanks to the likes of the book The Pioneer Flying Achievements of Preston Watson, which is full of inconsistencies and errors and relies primarily on James's discredited testimony.
​
The unearthing of factual accounts of Watson's activities has not prevented a flood of articles and further re-assertions of the discredited stories in newspapers and magazines since James made his assertions over 60 years ago, however. During the 100th anniversary year of the Wrights' first powered flights, reporters took up the story and published "their" exclusive in the local press, recycling the same James Watson quotes and statements between them.
​
Facts about Preston Watson remain as obscure to the public today as before December 1953, and although James Watson later publicly denied the claims he made about his brother, there are still many who refuse to accept that his tale has been so comprehensively debunked.
​
Now, go to the Preston Watson sources of reference page: