Arthur Longmore

Then-Lieutenant Longmore (in dark coat walking toward camera on right) on 1 December 1911 immediately after he became the first person in the United Kingdom to take off from land and make a successful water landing, using the aircraft behind him, a Short Improved S.27 bearing Admiralty number 38, later often called the "Short S.38."

Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Murray Longmore, (8 October 1885 – 10 December 1970) was an early naval aviator, before reaching high rank in the Royal Air Force. He was Commander-in-Chief of the RAF's Middle East Command from 1940 to 1941.

Early life Born in Manly, New South Wales, the son of English parents Charles Croker Longmore and Janet Murray, he was educated at Benges School, Hertford, and Foster's Academy, Stubbington, before entering Dartmouth Naval College. He was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1904. That year, assisted by Oswald Short of Short Brothers, he devised a way of mounting streamlined air bags on the undercarriage struts and under the tail of a Short Improved S.27 biplane with the construction number S.38—later often referred to as the "Short S.38"—and on 1 December 1911, using the air bags for flotation, then-Lieutenant Longmore became the first person in the United Kingdom to take off from land and make a successful water landing in a seaplane when he landed Improved S.27 No. 38 on the River Medway off Sheerness.

Career Longmore joined the Royal Naval Air Service in 1912. Before the outbreak of the First World War he served as a flight instructor at the newly formed Central Flying School, Upavon, and was then appointed commander of the seaplane base at Cromarty and later of the experimental seaplane establishment at Calshot. The party kept its collective head down during the campaign, though they did have to restrain Montague Moore, the previous Labour candidate and a few other local Labour members from actively supporting Kendall.

The war was not going well for the Allies; the Russians had been driven back, the Japanese had taken Singapore and many were calling for Britain to create a 'Second Front' in Europe. The popular Labour politician Sir Stafford Cripps, who had returned to Britain following a spell as Ambassador to Russia, was brought into Churchill's War Cabinet.

One of Kendall's campaign leaflets proclaimed that "Denis Kendall is another Stafford Cripps. Independent yet Churchillian."

Kendall revealed wartime production figures in his election hustings speeches to criticise the government, but in a way that breached the Official Secrets and the Defence of the Realm Acts.

The Grantham Communist party in line with the position taken by their national headquarters, circulated a leaflet that urged electors to vote for the Conservative Longmore, so as to show solidarity with the Red Army. Electorate 54,317

Family In 1913 Longmore married Marjorie Maitland, the daughter of William James Maitland C.I.E.; they had a daughter and three sons. One of their sons, Wing Commander Richard Maitland Longmore OBE, was killed in action on 4 October 1943, in the course of an attack on a U-boat. Richard's daughter Elisabeth married Nicholas Luard in 1963 and became a food writer. Another son, Captain Peter Maitland Longmore, M.C., was in Egypt and India with Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell. Peter Longmore married Field Marshal Wavell’s daughter Lady Felicity Ann Wavell in Delhi on 20 February 1947.