By Jenny Donohoe, Lawrence Hargrave Society secretary

The Lawrence Hargrave Society Incorporated has been active since 2008, promoting and educating the achievement of our first famous pioneering aviator, Lawrence Hargrave. 

The society is a not-for- profit organisation funded through membership and occasional grants and is currently working on a permanent Hargrave exhibition at the Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum (HARS) at Albion Park Rail.

The work done by Hargrave started with his experimental box kite trials in 1894 that lifted into the air over Stanwell Park. After his early work in aerodynamics, Hargrave’s name became known and the Wright Brothers in the US took note. The ‘radial rotary’ engine and ‘aerofoil’ are another invention that is claimed to be Hargrave’s. Modified in 1908, this was more serious and recognised in military aircraft by the world. 

Hargrave did not patent his work but shared his experiments with the world; his archives in the Powerhouse Museum credit his achievements.

In the US in 1894, Octave Chanute published Progress in Flying Machines, with Hargrave’s experiments were recorded on 14 of its 398 pages, and wrote: “If there is one man, more than another, who deserves to succeed in flying through the air, that man is Lawrence Hargrave of Sydney.”

We need to step up and give Lawrence Hargrave the recognition he deserves for his contribution to the first flying machines in the world by naming our new International Terminal at Badgery’s Creek in Western Sydney as the ‘Lawrence Hargrave International Terminal’.

You can support this by sending in a submission to our Federal Minister, The Hon Paul Fletcher. 

A copy of a submission is on the website, www.lawrencehargrave.org

Contact the society via email at lawrencehargravesociety@gmail.com