Saturday, December 20, 2025
Alcock and Brown and the first transatlantic flight
The RAF commemorated the occasion with an exhibition in Swansea Museum and a very swanky dinner, which I wrote about on my Mayoral blog, here.
As Wikipedia recalls, together with John Alcock, Arthur Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919. The two men flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.
The Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, presented them with the Daily Mail prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by aeroplane in "less than 72 consecutive hours". A small amount of mail was carried on the flight, making it the first transatlantic airmail flight. The two aviators were awarded the honour of Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) a week later by King George V at Windsor Castle.
The original plane is housed in the British Science Museum, hanging from a ceiling. The picture is of a replica produced for the exhibition.
The Swansea link comes from the fact that Sir Arthur Whitten Brown lived here for most of his adult life, working at the Vickers office in the town centre. There is though, no official blue plaque on Belgrave Court, as this letter to the Guardian in 2019 makes clear:
Jan Wiczkowski (Letters, 16 June) claims Arthur Whitten Brown as a Manchester man, although Brown was originally from Glasgow and died in Swansea in 1948. However, it is certainly true that he, John Alcock and their pioneering flight are largely ignored these days.
My mother was a neighbour of Whitten Brown when he lived in Belgrave Court in the Uplands district of Swansea. From what he seems to have told her the historic flight was at times terrifying, yet this was a man who would not go to the air raid shelter during the three-night blitz on Swansea in February 1941.
Your correspondent is right: “courage tempered with a little wild and optimistic madness” deserves to be remembered and celebrated, yet there is only a small, inconspicuous memorial on Belgrave Court. If anyone deserves a proper blue plaque, it is Whitten Brown.
Rev Dr Peter Phillips, Swansea
Time for that to be put right.
