Another set issued in April, but also it references the fact that Gabriel Voisin, showing here, made his first ever test flight of a glider in April 1904, at Berck-sur-Mer - and that in April 1910 he first flew what he called his racing craft, known as the Voisin Type de Course.
Gabriel Voisin was born on the 5th of February, 1880, and when he was young his father went out and never came back. He had a slightly older brother, and their mother relocated with them both to her father`s, where his father, their grandfather, seems to have adopted them, or at least took them under his wing and taught them mechanics and engineering.
After leaving school, Gabriel Voisin started work with an architect in Paris, but his head was turned by a visit to the Paris International Exposition of 1900, at which he first saw an aeroplane. This is said to have been a Clement Ader Avion III, but this seems odd as the steam-driven craft had not flown since 1897 and there was some doubt as to whether it actually flew at all. He must have seen some kind of aircraft, as from then on he was possessed with the idea of designing one, and of making his designs fly.
Whilst on his military service, he attended a lecture by Captain Ferdinand Ferber, and he introduced our man to Ernest Archdeacon, who employed Voisin to test fly a glider he had made. The tests were conducted in April 1904, at Berck-sur-Mer, and the craft did prove airworthy, hopping into the sky several times, to a maximum length of sixty-six feet. Voisin could see that some improvements were needed, and he spoke up. The craft was constructed, and also tested, in March 1905, but the flight failed and the luckily unmanned structure was destroyed. It had been towed into the air by a motor car, driven by Mr Archdeacon, and it was felt that the accident had happened because there had not been enough lift from the ground. This was tackled by Mr. Voisin adding floats and launching another craft into the river Seine, then gaining height with a tow from a boat. This did indeed work a lot better, and the flight was noted by Louis Bleriot, who asked Voisin to look at his machine, which Voisin did, adding several improvements, and agreeing to partner Bleriot in the future constriction of any craft.
In July 1905, Voisin flew both Mr. Bleriot`s and Mr. Archdeacon`s craft in quick succession. Mr. Archdeacon`s glider worked well, but Mr. Bleriot`s was affected by strong winds, and blown off course into the river, at which point Voisin was trapped, and almost drowned. The duo continued to work together but there were several failures of their craft, and they were both disheartened when late in 1906 Alberto Santos-Dumont flew his biplane for more than three hundred feet, so much so that the partnership was dissolved.
Voisin then set up a company with his brother, called Voisin Freres, and they opened the world`s first commercial aircraft factory. They designed and built many world record breaking craft, and for several glorious years the record went to and fro between Leon Delagrange and Henri Farman, both of whom were in Voisin built machines.
Charles Voisin was sadly killed, in a motoring accident, in 1912. The company continued, but was renamed, and Gabriel threw himself into supplying aircraft for the French military, joining them as a pilot at the outbreak of the First World War. However he was not happy with the use to which his machines were put, and was much affected by reports of deaths of personnel and civilians due to aerial bombings. After the war he stopped making aeroplanes, and went over to making cars, but as the Germans invaded France his factory was closed. He lived through the Second World War, and afterwards returned to designing, producing more cars, bicycles, and even trying to solve the desperate need for new housing with a kind of metal `prefab`. In 1960 he stopped work and moved out to the country. He died in 1973, at the age of ninety-three.
Now this is a curious set, for it is identical to another set, with the same title, also issued by Lambert & Butler, in December 1933 - apart from the fact that the second set had the fronts printed in brown. You can see the brown version in our newsletter for the week beginning on the 19th of August, 2023, just scroll down to Wednesday, 23rd August.
In our original Lambert & Butler reference book, (RB.9, published in 1948), the two sets are listed as :
51. 25. A HISTORY OF AVIATION. Fronts printed by letterpress (Duolone) in green. Backs in dark green, with descriptions. April 1932
52. 25. A HISTORY OF AVIATION. Identical to (51.) but fronts in brown. December 1933.
Now for some reason these are listed after "Hints and Tips for Motorists" and before "Homeland Events", in other words disregarding the "A" entirely, and just starting with the "History". And, yes, there does seem to be an error in the use of the word "(Duolone)" - it ought to read "(Duotone)", which is a printing process in which the prints are produced by using two half-tone plates, each set at a slightly different angle, either one black and one colour, or two shades of the same colour. Apparently both the green and the brown were duotones, as they did not say otherwise.
In our original World Tobacco Issues Index the sets are listed alphabetically, but split into date order, so our sets both come in section 2.B, for issued circulated between 1922 and 1939. This means that our set comes between "Hints and Tips for Motorists" and "Horsemanship", the "Homeland Events" having been moved to section 3, with the overseas issues. Our two sets remain together, as :
A HISTORY OF AVIATION. Sm. Nd. (25) ... L8-52
A. Front in dark green
B. Front in brown
All the above remains the same in our updated version of the World Tobacco Issues Index, save the card code, which is changed to L073-390