Harold H. Piffard

Piffard painted a wide variety of subjects in both oils and watercolour.[11] He made his reputation by exhibiting large history paintings at the Royal Academy, on four occasions between 1895 and 1899. The best-known of these was Saragossa 10 February 1809.[6] The scholar of literature Philip V. Allingham describes this as "dramatically (one might even say, sensationally) depict[ing] Napoleon's forces brutally putting down the resistance of Spanish patriots inside the cathedral of Zaragoza during the Peninsular War".[6]

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  Classical scene
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  Joan of Arc
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  Snowballing
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  Bather
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  Odalisque
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  Napoleon history painting
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  French assault on Saragossa, 10 February 1809

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  Still life
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  Courtship history painting
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  Jacobean bathtime scene
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  The Signing of the Armistice, Nov. 11th, 1918[12]

Piffard started his work as an illustrator in 1894 with contributions to periodicals including The Strand Magazine, The Illustrated London News and The Penny Pictorial Magazine.[6][11] He began to illustrate books in 1895, eventually illustrating over a hundred novels, many of them for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,[6] by authors including Frances Hodgson Burnett,[13] Guy Boothby, Harry Collingwood, Mrs. Henry Wood, Richard Marsh, Max Pemberton, and J. M. Neale. From 1908 he illustrated a series of classics for Collins including works by Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot.[6][11]

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  Cover of George Griffith's Valdar the Oft-born, 1895, signed lower left
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  Cover of William le Queux's Zoraida, 1895, signed lower left
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  Interior of a Bromsgrove Nailmaker's shed, 1896
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  "The Silent Groves", plate on page 279 of Sibyl Falcon. A study in romantic morals by Alfred Edgar Jepson, 1895
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  "There in the blackness of the night I saw two gleaming eyes", plate on page 77 of The City of Gold by Edward Markwick, 1896

The following set of six illustrations were made by Piffard for Geoffrey Harrington's Adventures by Harry Collingwood. This was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1907.

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  Geoffrey Harrington holds onto the stump of the mast while attempting to cut free the broken mast and rigging
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  Geoffrey Harrington foils an assassination attempt
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  Geoffrey Harrington and the Queen plight their troth to each other
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  The Avelians set the Tutan Dockyard on fire
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  Geoffrey Harrington is succoured by his Royal Sweetheart
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  The deposed Tutan King listens to music

Piffard began making model aircraft in 1907, winning a prize for one of them at Olympia in 1909. He began to fly in 1909, using an 8-cylinder 40 horsepower ENV 'D' engine and building the airframe in his studio; he rented a shed on Back Common Road, Turnham Green, near his home to assemble the aircraft, which was a biplane with an elevator in front of the wing, and a variable-pitch propeller.[2] From September 1909 he tested the aircraft on a rented field in Ealing to the west of Masons Lane at what was then Hangar Hill Farm (not the same as the later Acton Aerodrome, which was on the other side of Masons Lane).[2][14] He managed to get the plane airborne and fly "a foot or two from the ground for a distance of a hundred yards or so."[2] However, on 3 December 1909 the aircraft and its marquee hangar were destroyed in a storm.[2]

Piffard in his hand-built aircraft Hummingbird on the Shoreham field where he flew it, 1910[2]

Piffard then co-founded (with George Wingfield, a lawyer) the Aviator's Finance Company, which took out a lease on land at Shoreham-by-Sea near his old school, Lancing College, which already possessed a hangar. With Edouard Baumann and two assistants, they reworked the aircraft's design and had Hummingbird ready on 3 May 1910. It was able to take off in short hops, earning it the nickname of "The Grasshopper"; it frequently crashed because of the hidden ditches in the grass. In September 1910 he flew at a height of 30 or 40 feet for half a mile, managing to fly right across the field to a nearby hotel, The Sussex Pad, "in about 40 seconds". He had not learnt how to turn the plane in the air, and the plane had to be wheeled back to the hangar, as there was no space to take off near the hotel, but he celebrated with champagne all the same.[2][15][16][8]

A local cinematograph company asked to film a flight, and he confidently accepted; Colin Manton describes this as characteristic hubris.[2] Ignoring warnings of a dangerous ditch, he tried to fly over it, destroying the aircraft in a "comprehensive smash" which was recorded on film.[2] The cameraman recalled that Piffard still "seemed in no way disappointed; in fact, I thought I saw a gleam of satisfaction in his eye".[2]

In 1911 Piffard unsuccessfully tested a new aircraft, the Piffard Hydroplane, which had floats as well as wheels, on Shoreham beach. He developed no more aircraft and did not attempt to fly again, working as an artist and illustrator. The land at Shoreham became Shoreham Airport.[2] In 2007 the Shoreham Airport Historical Association built a replica of Piffard's Hummingbird.[17]