Sefton Brancker

Air Vice-Marshal Sir William Sefton Brancker, (22 March 1877 – 5 October 1930) was a British pioneer in civil and military aviation and senior officer of the Royal Flying Corps and later Royal Air Force. He was killed in an airship crash in 1930, exactly 20 years after his first flight.

Early life

Sefton Brancker was born in Woolwich, the eldest son of Col. William Godeffroy Brancker and Hester Adelaide, the daughter of Major General Henry Charles Russell. Brancker grew up as the elder of two brothers; their father died in 1885. From 1891 to 1894, the young Brancker attended Bedford School. the Branckers were a long-established Anglo-German family that had lived in England for several generations.

On 7 April 1907, he married May Wynne, the daughter of Colonel Spencer Field of the Royal Warwickshire regiment; they had one son, also called William Sefton Brancker. He served in the Second Boer War and later in India, where he made his first flight in 1910. On 18 June 1913 he was awarded the Royal Aero Club's Aviator's Certificate no. 525. In 1917, he briefly served as the General Officer Commanding Royal Flying Corps's Palestine Headquarters and then its Middle East headquarters. and was granted a permanent commission as major-general in the RAF. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 1 January 1919 and retired from the RAF with the rank of major-general on 13 January following. He was granted the rank of air vice-marshal in 1924.

Civil aviation On 11 May 1922 he was made Director of Civil Aviation,

Brancker was chairman of the Royal Aero Club's (RAeC) Racing Committee from 1921 to 1930, and his dynamic leadership led to the RAeC forming the Light Aero Club scheme in 1925, which helped provide the British clubs with examples of such new and improved aircraft types as the de Havilland Moth and Avro Avian.

Death

Together with Lord Thomson, the Air Minister, Brancker was killed when the airship R101 crashed near Beauvais, France, on 5 October 1930, during its maiden voyage to India. His death occurred on the 20th anniversary of his first flight.

Legacy In 1952, British European Airways named its 'Pionair' (Douglas DC-3) G-AKNB "Sir Sefton Brancker" to mark his substantial contribution to the development of British aviation.

In 1996, British Airways (BA) named one of its newly delivered Boeing 777s (G-ZZZB) "Sir William Sefton Branker" in recognition of his work. Other 777s in the BA fleet were named after aviation pioneers, for example "Wilbur and Orville Wright" and "Sir Frank Whittle".

Kenmore Park housing estate in Kenton, Harrow, has a number of its roads named after aviators including Brancker.

Brancker Road in Plymouth was named in his honour during build in the mid 1930s.