From triumph in the skies to a forgotten tragedy
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Boldon Flats is a site important for nature conservation, which contains an area of damp pasture. The flats are flooded from each October to March and attract a wide array of bird life and a large population of Common Frogs
Boldon Flats used to be the setting for the Boldon Races held each year at Easter, Whit and August Bank Holidays. In August 1910 at such an event the crowd were entertained with a flying display by the first female professional pilot, Mathilde Franck. Tragically, disaster struck, the biplane she was flying crashed and killed a local boy. Mathilde escaped with just a broken leg and the incident effectively ended her ambition to be on a par with some of aviation's earliest male pioneers. Today, her feat is virtually forgotten locally and the location from which she took off is an everyday field where cows graze.
Rosalind Mathilde Franck had been born in France in 1866. By the end of the Edwardian era – by then married to a British journalist – she was one of only four or five women held in serious regard in the world of early aviation. She had learned to fly at the French plant of Farnham's, manufacturers of the bi-plane in which she would take to the skies over Boldon.
On 20 July 1910, having already established a record by flying, non-stop, for 14 miles at Mourmelon, north-east of Paris, she planned a cross-Channel flight. Her aim was to emulate Louis Bleriot, who'd been the first man to fly across the English Channel the year before. In the end, bad weather prevented her making what would have also been the longest flight by a female aviator hitherto.
By the end of July, she was on her way to Tyneside. Richard Thornton, manager of the Sunderland Empire theatre, had offered to sponsor her to fly from Boldon Flats which, at the time, were the location of the Boldon Races, held every Easter, Whitsun and August Bank Holiday. Her Maurice Farman bi-plane was transported to Boldon station on a special train, arriving on the Saturday of the Bank Holiday weekend.
That evening, she took off in the plane after a 100-yard run and, after a short spin, landed safely a mile and a half away. It was a triumph – the first significant powered flight by a woman anywhere in the UK. But fate would quickly turn against her.
On 1 August 1910, she again took off, but this time deciding to fly very low, out of fear of hitting the tower at Fulwell waterworks. In the event, it was a flagstaff that she clipped. The collision caused the flimsy aircraft to turn over at a height of 25ft, crashing to the ground. She herself was lucky, although she did suffer internal injuries and a broken leg. A young boy on the ground, called Wood, was less fortunate. He was struck by the aircraft's engine and died, entering the history books as only the second person to be killed on the ground by an aeroplane. The previous autumn, a woman in France had been the first. Bits of the shattered plane also struck other spectators, causing lesser injuries.
Gamely, Madame Franck subsequently appeared at the Sunderland Empire – pushed on stage in a wheelchair by her manager. Before the tragedy, she had expressed hopes of entering the Chicago to New York air race, sponsored by the New York Times. But the accident effectively ended her flying career and she was unable to obtain a licence. She died in 1956.
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Abg rirelguvat vf n angheny pbybhe