Centennial of Flight in Singapore - A Tribute To

 

Joseph Christiaens   

the man who flew the first airplane

in Singapore 100 years ago

 

 

by Lim Sa Bee

 

 

 

 

I chanced to come across the following while reading an article “They mounted up as Eagles” by Major D. P. Tidy in a Military History Journal:

 

“Joseph Christiaens a visiting Belgian, gave demonstrations and sold at least one aircraft, a Bristol Box Kite No. 28, to the redoubtable Dr. John Weston.  Some sources, including the Friend of 24 August 1911, say he purchased three Bristol biplanes.  The third aircraft could have been in the form of spares, and the second was possibly No.27.”

 

This brings to mind a person who made history in Singapore as the first man ever to fly an airplane on the island in 1911.  Joseph Christiaens demonstrated a Bristol Box-Kite biplane at the old Race Course (now Farrer Park) on 16 Mar 1911.  The Box-kite, a modified version of the early Henri Farman biplane, was built in 1910 by British and Colonial Aeroplane Company (British’s first aircraft factory in Bristol, later known as Bristol Aeroplane Company)

 

The event together with programme of the display, details of the flying machine and name of the aviator had received quite a lot of local press coverage at that time.  The name of the pilot given in the newspapers was M. Christiaens or M. J. Christiaens or M. Joseph Christiaens.   Many people may not know he is a Belgian as there was no mention of his nationality in the press.  M. is obviously the abbr. for Monsieur because French (or Belgian French) is the most spoken language used by more than 40% of the population in Belgium.

 

Probably because of the term of address for a French-speaking man, many people including our local authors or publishers might have mistaken him to be a Frenchman.  I don’t really know where the information of him being French originated, but such information is recorded and found in the following reference books and aviation-related publications as well as the Government agencies’ websites in Singapore:

   

Books and publications:

 

·       Wings over Singapore (The story of Singapore Changi Airport) by P Hutton, 1981 (pg 15)

·       Singapore Fly-past – A pictorial review of civil aviation in Singapore, 1911-1981 by Department of Civil Aviation/Archives & Oral History Department, 1982 (pg 9)

·       Singapore - A Pictorial History 1819-2000 by Gretchen Liu, 2001 (pg 172)

·       The 1991 Collection of Singapore Stamps by Singapore Philatelic Bureau, 1991 (pg 16)

 

Websites:

 

·       Singapore Infopedia – mentioned under Old Race Course (Farrer Park)

·       CAAS (Civil Aviation Authorities of Singapore) – under “Our History”

 

With online resources, it is quite easy to find out the biography of Joseph Christiaens.  There are lots of documented information on the Net to verify the fact that he is indeed a Belgian aviator and not a Frenchman.  Appended below is a short biography of Joseph Christiaens and summary of his adventures with airplanes:

 

Joseph Christiaens (aka Josef Christiaens) was born to a well to do family near Brussels in Belgium in 1879.  He was an engineer, car racer and aviator (his name is among the important Belgian pioneers in aviation on the website of the Brussels Air Museum).

 

In Mar 1910, he learned to fly in a Henri Farman airplane with Geo Chavez and in the following month, he was registered with Belgian Pilot License #7, becoming one of the first 11 aviators registered at the Aero Club of Belgium.

 

Since then, he took part in a number of aviation meetings with the Farman racing plane at

 

·       Grande Semaine D’Aviation de Rouen, 19-26 Jun 1910;

·       Bournemouth Aviation Meeting, 11-16 Jul 1910 during which he won several cash prizes.  His Farman aircraft crashed on landing on the 4^th day while carrying a passenger, but he survived the experience.

·       Flying Week organized by Belgium Aero Club in Brussels at the Stokkel Hippodrome, 23 Jul - 4 Aug 1910

 

According to the acepilots.com website, Christiaens with his brother Armaud, made a tour of the East Indies, taking with him two British-built biplanes in 1911.  This piece of information does coincide with his appearance in South East Asia, where he was known to have held the demonstration of the Bristol Box-Kite biplane in Singapore.  And, if the statement were accurate, it would appear that he came to Singapore en-route to, or from the East Indies during this trip.  However, I have not been able to find out more about his tour of the East Indies (now Indonesia).  Did he conduct any flying display in that region?  I would be pleased to hear from any collectors who may have further information on this.

 

In Aug 1911, he gave demonstrations and sold three Box-Kite biplanes (Nos. 27, 28 and 29) to South African Air Force as enumerated in the extract of the said article.  He appeared to have worked as a concessionaire of the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company.

 

Other than the last known record of his participation at the Hydroplane Contest in Monaco (27 Mar- 3 Apr 1912), he seemed to be more active as a racecar driver in subsequent years.  He died on 25 Feb 1919 in a road accident while testing a racing car in England, near the Moorfield Works of the Sunbeam Motor Car Co. Ltd. where he worked as Head of Experimental Department.  His speeding car crashed into a wall trying to avoid a horse-cart emerging out of a side road.

 

If you have time and are interested in finding out more information and stories of this forgotten man of our aviation history, you can google “Joseph Christiaens + aviation” or “Josef Christiaens + aviation”.  You will find that he was one of the big names in aviation of the day, and also a speed demon.

 

Just to sidetrack a bit to the related events that had shaped our aviation history.  On 18 Mar 1911, the 3^rd and last day of the Singapore flight demonstration, a Henri Farman biplane was flown at Sha Tin in Hong Kong by another Belgian aviator, Charles Van den Born.  He became the first to fly an airplane in Hong Kong, but only after the flight made by his contemporary, Joseph Christiaens in Singapore.  Both Van den Born and Christiaens earned their Belgian Pilot Licenses #6 and #7 respectively in 1910.  Coincidentally, both of them had created aviation history in the Far East by being the first flyers – one in Singapore and the other in Hong Kong almost at the same time.

 

Originally, Charles Van den Born’s intention was to fly the Farman in Singapore, and he shipped the disassembled plane and some spare parts in Oct 1910 from Marseilles by French steamer, SS Polynesian bound for Singapore.  When Van den Born and his wife arrived, the Straits Government refused to grant him permission for any flight in Singapore (probably because the Farman was a French machine and there was already a plan to demonstrate a British built Box-Kite in Singapore).  After being denied permission, he smartly turned to the French controlled Indo-China (Vietnam) and became the first aviator to successfully complete a powered flight., not only in Saigon but in South East Asia on 10 Dec 1910 (not to be confused with an earlier attempt by another French aviator to fly in Saigon as his Bleriot aircraft crashed during the takeoff).  This was followed by his next stop in Bangkok (on 31 Jan 1911) and later in Hong Kong although he also met with some problems in trying to fly in Hong Kong initially.  He named his aircraft ‘Wanda” after the Governor’s daughter – what a shrewd way to gain favour!   After a long wait for one and a half months, the display finally took place on 18 Mar 1911 but that was already 2 days after Singapore’s first demonstration flight of a British biplane.  It seemed like arrangements were deliberately made between the two British Colonies in Asia to ensure that a British-made airplane be flown first in a British Territory, rather than a French aircraft.

 

History would have been written otherwise had Charles Van den Born been allowed to fly in Singapore and the honour of being the first in the region would have gone to Singapore.  Events that changed the aviation history are almost unknown or forgotten.  Hopefully this article also helps to rectify the omission and inaccuracy of the aviation history of East Asia contained in our local publications, such as Singapore Fly-past,

although an older book, which is still one of the important reference guides for the study of our aviation history.  Below is a summary of the major “firsts” in aviation history of this region together with names of the flyers:

 

10 Dec 1910 at Saigon, Indo-China (now Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam) by Belgian aviator, Charles Van den Born in his Henri Farman biplane

 

19 Dec 1910 at Tokyo, Japan by Japanese Army Capt Yoshitoshi Tokugawa using a Henri Farman biplane bought from France

 

31 Jan 1911 at Bangkok, Thailand by Belgian aviator, Charles Van den Born after his flight in Saigon

 

21 Feb 1911 at Manila, Philippines during Manila Carnival by two American aviators,  James C Mars in a Skylark biplane, and Capt Thomas Baldwin using his own “Baldwin Red Devil” biplane.

 

16 Mar 1911 at Singapore by Belgian aviator, Joseph Christmas in his Bristol Box Kite

 

18 Mar 1911 at Hong Kong by Belgian aviator, Charles Van den Born after his flight in Bangkok.  (After Hong Kong, he went to Canton (Guangzhou) of China to conduct flight demonstrations on 10 Apr, where the Viceroy of Canton was assassinated while witnessing the flight.  Van de Born returned to France after the incident and ended his 6-month history-making trip to Asia)

 

In celebration of the centenary of our aviation, I would like to share the pictures of a few postcards showing the Bristol Box Kite biplane flown by Joseph Christiaens at the old Race Course 100 years ago in 1911.  Not many of these cards were produced owing to the decline in postcard collecting prior to the First World War.  They are quite hard to come by as only a few have been recorded.  Being a pictorial record of the first flight in Singapore, it is a good forerunner and an important item to illustrate the beginning of aviation history in a Singapore or a Malayan aerophilatelic collection.                                     

                       

 

 

 

                              

                              

                                         

 

                 

 

 

 

                                     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 

                (Pictures of postcards by courtesy of Lim Sa Bee, author of the article).   

                     References:  Internet resources -

                     Photo of Joseph Christiaens from collection of Jean-Pierre Lauwers

                     Articles from Air Classic by George A Larson

                     Past to Present Vintage Photo Gallery webpage

                     The Early Birds of Aviation, Inc.