William Samuel Henson
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William Samuel Henson (1812-1888), also known as "Mad-man" Henson, was a pre-Wright brothers aviation engineer and inventor.
Henson was a resident of Chard, Somerset, England and a lacemaker by trade.
Starting c. 1840, Henson and fellow lacemaker John Stringfellow designed a large passenger-carrying steam-powered monoplane, with a wing span of 150 feet, which he named the "Henson Aerial Steam Carriage". He received a patent in 1843 along with Stringfellow. Henson, Stringfellow, Frederick Marriott, and D.E. Colombine, incorporated as the Aerial Transit Company in 1843 in England, with the intention of raising money to construct the flying machine. Henson built a scale model of his design, which made one tentative steam powered "hop" as it lifted or bounced, off its guide wire. Attempts were made to fly the small model, and a larger model with a 20 foot wing span, between 1844 and 1847, without success.
Henson appeared as a character in a fictional newspaper story by Edgar Allen Poe, which recounted a supposed trans-atlantic balloon trip. Henson was one of the passengers on the balloon.[1]
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[edit] Advertising
The Aerial Transit Company's publicist, Frederick Marriott, commissioned prints in 1843 depicting the Aerial Steam Carriage over the pyramids in Egypt, in India, and over London, England, and other places, which drew considerable interest from the pressise.
[edit] Design
The wings were rectangular, and were formed by wooden spars covered with fabric, and braced, internally and externally, with wires. The Aerial Steam Carriage was powered by two contra-rotating six-bladed propellers mounted in the rear in a push type system. The design follows earlier "birdlike" gliders. The Aerial Transit Company never built the largest version of the Aerial Steam Carriage, because of the failed attempts with the medium sized model. Henson, Stringfellow, Marriott and Colombine dissolved the company around 1848.
[edit] Emigration and death
In 1848 William Henson and his wife, Sarah, left England and moved to the United States, and lived in Newark, New Jersey. Henson never did any further aviation research while in the United States and worked as a machinist and civil engineer.
Henson did continue to create new inventions in other areas, however. He submitted a proposal for a breech-loading cannon design to the US Navy; it was rejected as impractical.[2]
Henson died in 1888. He and his family were buried in East Orange, New Jersey.
[edit] The Henson Aerial Steam Carriage
- Small model, wingspan unknown
- Medium model, wingspan 20 feet
- Full-size aircraft, wingspan 150 feet (never built)
[edit] Timeline
- 1812 Birth in England
- 1848 Emigration to the United States
- 1850 US Census in Newark, New Jersey as machinist
- 1870 US Census in Newark, New Jersey as civil engineer
- 1888 Death in Newark, New Jersey
[edit] References
- ^ Edgar Allan Poe, Balloon Hoax, New York Sun, 1844
- ^ Henson family documents in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum archives
