Reference
  • 2005/097
Archive collection
  • British Empire & Commonwealth
Level of description
  • Collection
Date
  • 1928-1960s
Description
  • This collection consists of 6 films, reflecting different periods in Blake's life. The first is a promotional film portraying a traveller's journey from London to Paris in an early Imperial Airways passenger airliner. There are 2 other early films from the 1930s, one showing scenes at Southampton, including the RMS Queen Mary and a Flying Boat, the other of footage taken in Gibraltar. The remaining films are from the 1960s and feature scenes in Spain and England.
Extent and medium
  • 6 films
Related material
  • There may be more information at RAF Hendon, including one of W T Blake's planes according to the family.
Creator
Biographical history
  • Wilfred Theodore Blake (1894-1968) was a pioneer aviator, travel writer and traveller. He served with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry then in the RAF, rising to the rank of Major. He married Agnes Ruby Lyall Wilson in 1927 in London. Blake led the first attempt to fly around the world in 1922. The pilot for this mission was Norman Macmillan, with Blake as co-pilot and navigator, and Geoffrey Malins as photographer. However the attempt had to be abandoned after the second stage of the flight when they made a forced water landing in the Bay of Bengal. Blake himself missed this as he had been left behind in Calcutta, hospitalised with a burst appendix. In 1951 Blake and his wife Ruby drove his Standard Vanguard motor car on a record journey around South America from La Paz to Rio de Janeiro. In 1959 they drove around the Central African Federation, again in a Standard Vanguard. Blake became a travel writer and wrote a number of books. In later life, he lived for a while in St Columb, Cornwall, then bought a large plot of land in Mijas, Spain on which he built a villa. He is buried in the RAF section of the military cemetery in Gibraltar, and his wife Ruby's ashes are buried with him.
Access status
  • Open
Access conditions
  • None