Richard Pearse

He was born in 1877 in rural Canterbury, the fourth of nine children. From a young age, he had a deep fascination with mechanics and could often be found tinkering with machines and engines in his father’s workshop. During his schooling years, he was described as reserved and independent, but he possessed a strong love for reading and would spend hours in class daydreaming.

While Richard had ambitions to pursue engineering, his family were unable to afford university. Despite having little interest in agriculture, his family gave him a farming block when he turned 21 to make a living.

It was on that land that Richard built himself a workshop, where he devoted most of his time to dreaming up and crafting gadgets. He developed a new style of bicycle made from a bamboo frame with pedals that moved in arcs rather than in a circle, and tyres that could be inflated while still in motion. Pearse obtained his first patent in 1902 for his bike, although it was never commercially successful. Among his other inventions were a needle threader, a potato planter, a topdresser, and two types of musical box.

But it was aviation that ultimately consumed Richard’s imagination. While he was young, he wanted to invent a machine capable of flight, a desire that continued into his adult years. Even from the remoteness of New Zealand, he was able to keep up to date with international innovation advances by reading the magazine Scientific American.

Richard Pearse created his flying machine from fabric-covered bamboo and repurposed farming equipment, mounted on top of tricycle wheels. His invention closely resembled a microlight aircraft in appearance, rather than a biplane like the Wright brothers’ invention. Even more impressive, he developed a system of wing flaps and ailerons – a system still used by modern aircraft today.

When he made his first public flight attempt, Richard flew a short distance before crashing into a hedge. His brother claimed he flew 400 metres, but others present estimated the distance to be between 100 and 150 metres. One thing that is not disputed was how impressed the spectators were who came to watch – a neighbour recalled she was “goggle-eyed with amazement”.

There has been much research conducted into the timing of this flight to try and ascertain whether Richard Pearse might have been the first to fly, including interviews with 48 surviving eyewitnesses in the 1980s. The date of the flight has never been agreed, but after decades of research to establish a date, 31 March 1903 is noted as the most likely – some eight months before Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their airplane in the United States.

In an unfortunate twist, Richard Pearse was taken to hospital from his injuries after crashing into the hedge, which should have provided evidence to prove the date of the flight, but the hospital later burned down, leaving no records. Adding to this unfortunate series of events, a professional photographer had taken a photo of the plane lodged in the hedge on the day after the crash, but the image was lost in a flood.

Richard also cast doubt on the date. In a newspaper interview from 1909 that was rediscovered recently, he said:

“From the time I was quite a little chap, I had a great fancy for engineering, and when I was still quite a young man, I conceived the idea of inventing a flying machine. I did not attempt anything practical with the idea until, in 1904, the St Louis Exposition authorities offered a prize of £20,000 to the man who invented and flew a flying machine over a specified course. I did not succeed in winning the prize. Neither did anybody else. I have had several tests. Last week’s was my most successful one, the machine rising readily.”

To Richard, aerial navigation meant a powered take-off followed by a controlled flight, so it is possible he simply dismissed his early achievements at flight. His early attempts did not fulfil those criteria since, while he made it off the ground, his speed was not sufficient to work the rudders and the plane was uncontrollable with an erratic descent.

Whether or not Richard Pearse achieved powered flight ahead of the Wright brothers was not something that ever seemed important to him. Regardless of the degree of control he had over his aircraft, his invention was still remarkable. From his simple workshop filled with basic technology, far away from major innovation centres, he had a dream of creating a flying machine that could take him through the air. And Richard Pearse achieved it.