Frederick Brearey

Life & Legacy

Frederick William Brearey (born on 18 February 1816 in Stillingfleet and died on 31 January 1896 in London) was a British aeronautical inventor and pioneer. He cofounded the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1866, now the Royal Aeronautical Society, and served as its Honorary Secretary for thirty years until his death. He is widely regarded as one of the pioneers and founding figures of aeronautics and heavier-than-air flight.
Brearey played a key role in proposing and organizing the First Aeronautical Exhibition at The Crystal Palace, Sydehnam, London, in 1868. This exhibition brought together 77 entries, including models, plans, machinery, and aerial apparatus illustrating contemporary experiments and concepts in flight. Although many contributions were experimental, the event heightened public and scientific interest in aerial navigation.
Throughout his tenure with the Aeronautical Society, Brearey maintained correspondence with leading innovators of the era and helped foster international exchange on flight research. Archival letters show his engagement with other experimenters, including James Glaisher and John Stringfellow, among others.
Brearey made a "wave action" aeroplane model driven by a rubber band. It had rigid spars (elsewhere called "bowsprits") which beat up and down, trailing undulating wings of fabric behind them, whose action propelled the model forward with "limited success."
He filed for patents on this craft in Britain in 1879 and later in the U.S.
Brearey published more than 15 articles about aeronautical subjects from 1866 to 1883.
The 1880 and 1885 patents, as well as Brearey's correspondences, identify his location at Maidenstone Hill in Greenwich in the Hundred of Blackheath, Kent.