Who Should Sit Next To Me But……….

I was sitting on a bench overlooking Stanwell Park Beach from the cliff top at Bald Hill. It is a stunning view from there. The pretty curved beach, flanked by rocky headlands protruding into the Tasman Sea, hosts myriads of swimmers and sunbathers. Looking south, the scenic Lawrence Hargraves Drive hugs the vertical cliffs of the escarpment and between Coalcliff and Clifton, because of landslides and rock falls the government has built a magnificent 665 metre bridge over the ocean. Looking along the Illawarra coastline Port Kembla can be identified by thin wisps of industrial smoke in the distance.

From this seat on the headland I could see the vastness of the Tasman Sea as well as feeling the sea breezes on my face, when a grey bearded gentleman sat down beside me. He was dressed in 19^th century clothing and his features and demeanour suggested a modest unassuming man. I knew that I had seen his face before but I couldn’t quite remember just where.

I turned towards him and spoke about the bathers on the beach. He answered in a quiet voice, “That beach has special significance for me. I lived in Stanwell Park for thirty years and in the November of 1894 I lifted myself off the beach in my quest for flight. It was a four kite machine I had constructed which was attached to the ground by piano wire.”

Of course, I knew immediately to whom I was speaking, Lawrence Hargraves. I had seen his face on many $20 bank notes along with engravings of some of his gliders. I wanted to know the history behind this wonderful man.

In his unassuming manner he said, “I was born in England and educated there. My father and a couple of my older brothers came to Australia and sent for me when I was fifteen. My father, a lawyer, planned for me to study law like him but I failed my matriculation. I loved the sea so when I was offered a trip on a boat I took it. I eventually sailed to Papua mapping the Fly River and then circumnavigating Australia. On my return, I was apprenticed in the workshop of a Steam Navigational Company where I learnt design as well as many practical skills which were useful to me later in inventing.”

“I was an extra observer at Sydney Observatory and I was very much thrilled to observe the transit of Venus in 1881 as well as note the Krakatoa explosions which led me to a theory linking it with the brilliant sunsets I observed at the time.”

“Tell me Mr. Hargrave, what were the influences in your life that led to an interest with flight?”

He replied, “In one word nature. I liked watching the movement of waves, fish, snakes and birds and this led me to flight. In all my experiments, I looked closely at nature and tried to follow the principles I observe there.”

“How did you support yourself and your family while working on your theories and experiments?” I asked.

“My father died in 1885 and being a prudent man had bought land for me and my brothers. My inheritance was a stretch of land from Stanwell Park to Coalcliff. I leased out Coalcliff for coal mining and had a comfortable living of one thousand pounds per year. I gave up paid employment and became a gentleman inventor.”

“My early experiments and thoughts were about propulsion. Then I looked at the shapes of supporting surfaces of my kites and noted how each one behaved in different winds. My early models were monoplanes and then I thought about creating a machine capable of supporting a man’s weight in flight. I constructed many different types of engines mostly powered by petrol and compressed air. Over the next three years I had built seventeen steam engines which were all unsuccessful. You see, Sydney lacked the engineering skills for my work to succeed. And in 1903 I heard the news of the success of the Wright Brothers.”

“What would you consider to be your significant inventions in your lifetime?”

“One of my greatest inventions occurred in 1889. It was a compressed air engine powered by three rotating cylinders. This rotary engine powered many early aircraft right up until about 1920. The next one would have to be the box-like kite which greatly improved the lift to ratio drag of early gliders and the last one was my study of curved aero foils especially the designs with a thicker leading edge.”

I then asked, “Did you ever apply for patents on your many inventions?”

Passionately he replied, “Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labours to themselves, a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are much wasted money. The flying machines of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of flight for a thousand miles or so. Like everything else, it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition.”

Lawrence Hargrave disappeared from the seat as quietly as he came and I was left to ponder the life of this wonderful man while looking at the magnificent view with so much historical significance. I have since found out that his only son died at Gallipoli in May 1915 and he died of peritonitis in July 1915.

He was an optimistic man who was never dampened by failure and he deserves the recognition he received on the Twenty dollar note, the memorial to him at Bald Hill overlooking Stanwell Park Beach, the highway that bears his name from Helensburg to Thirroul, the centenary celebrations in 1994 to commemorate the man-lift at Stanwell Park beach, the title of Lawrence Hargrave Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Sydney University and the ‘Lawrence Hargrave’ name given by Australia’s largest airline, Qantas, to their 5^th airbus.