Stunning Shropshire snaps capture dawn of aviation

They show the first official aviation meeting held in the country under the auspices of the Aero Club of the United Kingdom. The event was at Blackpool in October 1909.

But how and why did the negatives find their way to Loton Park, near Alberbury, the family seat of the Leightons?

That is a mystery, although there may be a clue in that Sir Bryan Leighton had an interest in early aviation and was himself a daring pioneer parachutist.

Some big aviation names of the day were there, like A.V. Roe, Henri Farman, and Henri Rougier, setting a new distance and duration record, winning big cash prizes for the time, and entertaining a crowd over the week of around 200,000 - there were around 60,000 on the first day - in a meet in which high winds and rain often grounded the aircraft.

Happily the event passed off without any mishap.

Sir Bryan's grandson, Sir Michael Leighton, said of the pictures: "They were found by the late Marion Roberts, my archivist, in a file or in a book or something.

"They were my grandfather's, Sir Bryan's. I don't know who took them."

In fact Sir Michael had no idea of what exact event they showed or when, but here the RAF Museum at Cosford was able to help when he loaned the negatives for copying. The museum identified them as depicting that 1909 Blackpool meet.

Nor does Sir Michael know of any family connection although he does not rule out the possibility that his grandfather was at the event and took the pictures.

Al McLean, curator of the RAF Museum at Cosford, said: "I'm pretty certain they are of Blackpool which was quite important because it was one of the very early air shows. There were prizes being awarded I think for the longest distance. It was quite seminal in the development of aviation. In 1909 it was still a pretty novel thing.

"I offered the pictures to our curator of photographs at Hendon, and he said they had the event covered. The other thing is that I think Sir Michael's negatives are copy negatives. I suspect that in 1909 nobody took pictures on film, and everybody used glass plates.

"Although I suspect these were copies made at some point, that does not reduce their interest. The quality is quite good on them. You can make out quite a lot of detail. I don't think they are unique, as I managed to find another photograph from a different source."

While the connection between the Blackpool event and Sir Bryan is a matter of conjecture, the Leighton family has many aviation connections.

Sir Bryan was a guinea pig parachutist who made a jump from an altitude of only 800ft from an airship in August 1916 to demonstrate the quick opening of the parachute. During the Great War in a rare and possibly unique incident he and son Jack went on a bombing raid together. Sir Bryan is said to have dropped bombs from an orange box while Jack piloted the aircraft.

Jack was killed in an air crash in May 1917 and in August that year another son, Richard Leighton – Sir Michael's father – who was serving in a front line squadron was shot down by one of Manfred von Richthofen's infamous "flying circus" and seriously injured.

His life was saved by German doctors and he was to spend the rest of the conflict as a prisoner.