Wing-Commander Percival Russell Burchall ( )

Transcription

1 Wing-Commander Percival Russell Burchall ( ) Wing-Commander Burchall joined Aerofilms Ltd in 1934/5 in the role of Air Survey Manager. With a background in aerial photography, he provided the company and Mr Wills in particular with knowledge of technical developments in the field of aerial survey and mapping. Mr Burchall standing outside the Wembley Office, January AFL03/11/01/015/06 English Heritage.Aerofilms Collection. Percival was born in Ashton-under-Lyme in 1888, son of John and Constance Burchall, with an older sister and younger brother. By 1901 the family was living in London and at the time of the 1911 census the twenty-three year-old Percival was working as a Clerical Assistant at the London County Council (1901 England Census; 1911 England Census). 1

2 Percival began his First World War service in a Royal Flying Corps Special Reserve squadron, appointed as Second Lieutenant (probationary) on the 3 rd October 1915 and confirmed as an Assistant Equipment Officer on the 21 st November that year. He had been serving in France when, at Bertangles in September 1916, he contracted an eye infection which was serious enough to warrant his evacuation to England; and was only passed as fit for service on the 19 th January Percival was then posted to a Training Brigade, with a view to appointment as an Equipment Officer First Class (War Office, WO 339/50712). His ongoing service was in No 1 School of Photography at Farnborough (Flight, 1943:691). Percival s promotion at the School was rapid. Following being Mentioned In Despatches in January 1917 he was promoted to Temporary Captain in April 1917 (Flight, 1915:983; 1917a:35; 1917b:403); and then to Major, in command of the School (Air Ministry, AIR 29/727). In September 1918 he was writing to the Air Ministry to clarify details concerning the creation of a new trade and training department at the school, in cinematography (Air Ministry, AIR 1/17/15/1/86). By mid-1919 he had been granted a permanent commission in the RAF and was awarded an OBE (Military Division) in June (Flight, 1919:1065; Supplement to the London Gazette, 1919:7027). His command came to an end in 1920 (Air Ministry, AIR 29/727). It is clear that he kept up both his contacts and his interest in aerial photography following the war. He attended the first annual dinner of photographic officers of the RAF at the Café Royal in August 1919 alongside Victor Laws who had established the School of Photography (Conyers-Nesbitt, 1997:35) and other luminaries in the field such as Moore-Brabazon (Flight, 1919:1100). In September 1921 Percival won first prize in the Gordon Shephard 2

3 Memorial Essay Prizes competition for his essay on an investigation of the possibilities attaching to aerial co-operation with survey, map-making and exploring expeditions (Flight, 1921a:624). By the end of 1921 he was on the half-pay list (Flight, 1921b:804) and retired in November 1924 (Flight, 1924:749). Percival spent the early 1920s earning a living as a freelance photographer, taking photographs of famous, notorious and newsworthy people around London and selling them on to the press (Eden, 1976:634). Percival had married Elizabeth Townsend in 1923 (England and Wales, Marriage Index: ), with whom he had a son, John, born in 1927 (England and Wales, Birth Index: ); and was photographed in 1925 showing the Duke of York an Aircraft Disposal Company Cirrus aero-engine displayed on the Air Ministry stand in the Palace of Housing and Transport at the British Empire Exhibition (Flight, 1925b:536), implying some involvement in the aero industry at this time. Percival joined R. C. Kemp s Air Survey Co sometime between 1924 and 1928, concerned with photo processing and map-making to produce the company s new overseas surveys. Work included experimental aerial photography and mapping of the Sussex coast for the Ordnance Survey using a Williamson Eagle camera with 7 roll film, during which Percival flew with his colleague F.P. Raynham (Eden, 1976:634ff). Following a trip to Egypt via the Wild factory in Switzerland to collect an aerial camera, he co-authored with Kemp the Air Survey and Photography chapter of Squadron-Leader Burge s book Handbook of Aeronautics (1931). However, on the completion of a large survey project in the Sudan, Percival and his colleagues were made redundant and by 1933 Percival had been engaged by the Williamson Manufacturing Company, taking their Eagle air survey cameras on overseas tours (Eden, 1976:636; Flight, 1934:234). Aerofilms Ltd had first tried Eagle cameras in May 1931 (English Heritage Archive, Register 4) and were experimenting with infrared photography in

4 (English Heritage Archive, Register 5), a development by Ilford in that year (Flight, 1932:824; Fisher, 2012). By 1933 Aerofilms Ltd seems to have been using Williamson Eagle cameras more extensively, taking them out on the road with the 1933 National Aviation Day Display campaign (Flight, 1933:1020). Perhaps this is how Percival first made contact with Francis Wills. Percival joined Aerofilms Ltd in 1934/35 (Wills, 1938), described by Francis Wills as the Air Survey Manager. Although Aerofilms Ltd had engaged in innovative contracts for vertical photography during the 1920s (see e.g. Flight, 1925:74, English Heritage Archive, AFL03/11/1 and Pre-War Register 1 Nos ), Wills seems to have been able to pursue his interests in technological developments throughout the 1930s that went beyond day-to-day oblique photography perhaps Percival s know-how and experience helped to fill a gap on the staff as Aerofilms Ltd was building up vertical mosaic and map-revision work at this time (Wills, 1964). After all, the Williamson Manufacturing Company had built the prototype of a plotting machine designed by Percival (Lamboit, 1974:7). Wills had visited Germany in 1930/31 to find out about the photogrammetric tools being built by Zeiss, but nothing came of the trip (Wills, 1938). By contrast, the visit that Wills made with Percival to the Zeiss works in Germany and Wild in Switzerland in 1938 resulted in the purchase of the Wild A5 Autograph photogrammetric plotter (Wills, 1964). Percival served at HQ Technical Training Command early in the Second World War, re-joining No 1 School of Photography on the 1 st October 1942 as Commandant having been promoted to Wing Commander (Air Ministry, AIR 29/727; Flight 1943:691; Supplement to the London Gazette, 1946:1795). In 1944 he was making use of his contacts from his commercial working life, visiting Williamson at their Reading premises. From the School, on 1 February 1945 he was posted to the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough (Air Ministry, AIR 4

5 29/1162), apparently not returning to Aerofilms Ltd in its new guise as a subsidiary of Hunting Aerosurveys Ltd; and at the time of his death he was described as a Scientist working at the Ministry of Supply (General Register Office 1950). Nevertheless, he must still have been in close contact with his old colleagues, and Francis Wills in particular, through his involvement in the creation of the Photogrammetric Society. During 1948 Percival sat with Wills on the committee that sought to establish this professional body (Lamboit, 1974:7-8). Unfortunately he was not to see the final establishment of the Photogrammetric Society in 1952, having died on the 9 th November 1950 at the age of 62 (The Times, 1950). Sources 1901 England Census [database online], Available at < [accessed 08/ ]; citing Class: RG13; Piece: 482; Folio: 28; Page: England Census [database online], Available at < [accessed 08/ ]; citing Class: RG14; Piece: 3614; Schedule Number: 123. Air Ministry, AIR 1/17/15/1/86 Air Ministry: Air Historical Branch: Papers (Series I). Air Ministry Registered Files. School of Photography, South Farnborough - establishment of. The National Archives, Kew, London. Air Ministry, AIR 29/727 Air Ministry and Ministry of Defence: Operations Record Books, Miscellaneous Units. OPERATIONAL TRAINING UNITS. 1 School of Photography, Farnborough (UK). with appendices. The National Archives, Kew, London. Air Ministry, AIR 29/1162 Air Ministry and Ministry of Defence: Operations Record Books, Miscellaneous Units. R.A.F. INSTRUCTION UNITS. No. 1 School of Photography, Farnborough. with appendices. The National Archives, Kew, London. Burge, C.G. (ed) (1931). Handbook of Aeronautics. London: Gale and Polde Ltd (Royal Aeronautical Society). 5

6 Conyers-Nesbitt, R. (1997). Eyes of the RAF. Godalming: Bramley Books. Eden, J.A. (1976). Some experiences of air survey in England between the two World Wars. Photogrammetric Record 8(47): (April 1976). England and Wales, Birth Index: [database online], Available at < [accessed 14 August 2012]; Citing Date: Oct-Nov-Dec 1927; District: Kingston; Volume: 2a; Page: 672. England and Wales, Marriage Index: [database online], Available at < [accessed 14 August 2012]; Citing Date: Jul- Aug-Sep 1923; District: Kingston; Volume: 2a; Page: English Heritage Archive AFL03, Pre-War Register 1 Nos (Aerofilms Collection). English Heritage Archive AFL03, Aerofilms Collection Main Series Register 4 (Aerofilms Collection). English Heritage Archive AFL03, Aerofilms Collection Main Series Register 5 (Aerofilms Collection). English Heritage Archive AFL03/03/127 Photographs of Holland and Germany by Burchall, KLM and Hansa Luftbild (Aerofilms Collection). Fisher, M. (2012) Ilford History and Chronology [online], Available at < [accessed 19/07/2012]. Flight. (1915). The British Air Services. 17 December 1915, 983 [online], Available at < Flight. (1917a). Mentioned in Despatches. 11 January 1917, 35 [online], Available at < Flight. (1917b). The British Air Services. 26 April 1917, 403 [online], Available at < 6

7 Flight. (1919). London Gazette, August August 1919, 1065 [online], Available at < Flight. (1919). Aerial Photography and Map Making. 14 August 1919, 1100 [online], Available at < Flight. (1921a). Gordon Shephard Memorial Essay Prizes. 15 September 1921, 624 [online], Available at < Flight. (1921b). The Royal Air Force. 01 December 1921, 804 [online], Available at < Flight. (1924). The Royal Air Force. 27 November 1924, 749 [online], Available at < Flight. (1925a). Mapping London from the Air. 05 February 1925, 74, [online], Available at < Flight. (1925b). The Duke of York at Wembley. 20 August 1925, 536 [online], Available at < Flight. (1932). Through Rose-Tinted Spectacles. 02 September 1932, 824 [online], Available at < Flight. (1933). Spreading the Gospel. 12 October 1933, 1020 [online], Available at < [accessed 15 August 2012]. Flight. (1934). Eagle aircraft cameras. 08 March 1934, 234 [online], Available at < 7

8 Flight. (1943). Teaching Air Photography. 23 December 1943, 691 [online], Available at < General Register Office (1950) Certified Copy of an Entry of Death. District: Hammersmith; Date: 17 August 1950; No.: 462. Lamboit, P. (1974) History of the Photogrammetric Society, The Photogrammetric Record 8/43:5-18. Supplement to the London Gazette. (1919). 03 June 1919, 7027 [online], Available at < [accessed 15 August 2012]. Supplement to the London Gazette. (1946). 09 April 1946, 1795 [online], Available at < [accessed 14 August 2012]. The Times. (1950). Deaths. 11 November 1950; issue 51846, page 1 [online], Available at < [accessed 14 August 2012]. War Office, WO 339/50712 War Office: Officers' Services, First World War, Long Number Papers (numerical). Officers Services (including Civilian Dependants and Military Staff Appointments): Long Service Papers. 2nd Lieutenant P R BURCHELL. Royal Flying Corps. The National Archives, Kew, London. Wills, F. L. (1938). Notes for a Staff Dinner Speech First Year at Wembley. English Heritage Archive, AFL03/11/1. Wills, F.L. (1964). Memories of my association with the Hunting family and group Unpublished memoire, Blom Archive Collection. Katy Whitaker, English Heritage,