John Moore-Brabazon
John Moore-Brabazon, 1st Lord Brabazon of Tara (February 8 1884 - May 17 1964) was a British aviation pioneer.
John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon was born in England on February 8, 1884.
He learned to fly in 1908 in France in a Voisin biplane.
On October 30 1909, flying a Short Brothers aircraft, he flew a circular mile and won a 1,000 pound prize offered by the Daily Mail newspaper. On November 4 1909 he made the first live cargo flight by airplane when he put a small pig in a waste-paper basket tied to a wing-strut of his airplane.
On March 8 1910 Moore-Brabazon became the first person to qualify as a pilot in Britain and was awarded Royal Aero Club certificate number 1.
During the First World War he served in the Royal Flying Corps and was awarded the Military Cross. He was instrumental in the development of military aerial photography.
He later entered Parliament and served as Minister of Transport, and later Minister of Aircraft Production under Winston Churchill. He was eventually elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Brabazon of Tara.
In 1943 he chaired the Brabazon Committee which planned to develop the post-war British aircraft industry. He was involved in the production of the Bristol Brabazon, a giant airliner that first flew on September 4 1949. It was then and still is the largest aeroplane ever built in Britain.
He died in London on May 17 1964.
