Samuel Franklin Cody
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Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody) (6 March 1867 – 7 August 1913) was an early pioneer of manned flight, most famous for his work on the large kites known as Cody War-Kites that were used in World War I as a smaller alternative to balloons for artillery spotting. A flamboyant showman, he was and still is often confused with Buffalo Bill Cody, whose surname he took when young.
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[edit] Early life
Cody's early life is difficult to separate from his own stories told later in life, but it appears he was born 'Franklin Cowdery' in Davenport, Iowa in 1867, where he attended school until the age of 12. Not much is known about his life at this time although he claimed that during his youth he had lived the typical life of a cowboy. He learnt how to ride and train horses, hunt buffalo, shoot and use a lasso. He later prospected for gold in an area which later became Dawson City, centre of the famous Alaskan Gold Rush. Again these could be stories he picked up while travelling with various shows.
[edit] Showman
Cowdery started touring the US with a Wild West show, starring as 'Captain Cody, King of the Cowboys'. Cowdery married Maud Maria Lee in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and the name Samuel Franklin Cody appears on the 1889 marriage certificate.he Also decided to marry his wife in 1889.
Cody/Cowdery performed cowboy acts with his wife, including demonstrations of rifle and pistol sharpshooting and horsemanship. In 1890 he took the show to Europe, and was later joined by his wife.
S F Cody together with his wife Maud Maria Lee toured Europe giving rifle and horse riding displays and it was while touring that they met Mrs Elizabeth Mary King [to be known as Lela Cody] (nee Eliabeth Mary Davis) who was also touring with two of her younger sons Vivian and Leon King (later to be known as Leon and Vivian Cody to save embarrassment). The descendants of Vivian (Cody), whose real name is King, still refer to S F Cody as their grandfather or great-grandfather - which of course he was not. Maud Maria Lee(Cody's real wife) taught the two young boys to ride and shoot on horseback) Maud Maria was later to return to the USA alone, while her husband took up with Mrs Elizabeth Mary King (later to be known as Lela Marie Cody)
While in England, his company, including several members of the 'King' family, (to save embarrassment Leon and Vivian King still used the name of Cody as neither Mrs King or Cody ever divorced) toured the music halls, which were very popular at the time, giving demonstrations of his horse riding, shooting and lassoing skills. In 1898 Cody's latest show, The Klondyke Nugget, became very successful; this also included Edward Le Roy, (Edward King, Lela's eldest son from her marriage to Edward John King, a licensed victualler and brother to Leon and Vivian) While in England, Cody still lived with Mrs Elizabeth Mary King (his common-law wife who used the name of Lela Marie Cody,and who was generally assumed to be his legal wife. One of Lela's great-grandsons is the BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson).
[edit] Kites
It was around this time that Cody became interested in kites.[1] Leon also became interested, and the two of them competed to make the largest kites capable of flying at ever increasing heights. Vivian too became involved after a great deal of experimentation. Financed by his shows, Cody patented his famous design in 1901, a winged variation of Lawrence Hargrave's double-cell box kite. He offered this version for spotting to the War Office in December 1901 for use in the Second Boer War, and made several demonstration flights of up to 2,000 ft in various places around London.
A large exhibition of the Cody Kites took place at Alexandra Palace in 1903. Later he succeeded in crossing the English Channel in a berthon boat towed by one of his kites. His exploits came to the attention of the Admiralty, who hired him to look into the military possibilities of using kites for observation posts. He demonstrated them later that year, and again in 1908 when he flew off the deck of battleship HMS Recruit on September 2.
[edit] Cody's gliders
Cody's interests turned to gliders, based largely on his kite designs. He built a glider and flew it a number of times in 1905. It eventually suffered damage in a hard landing and was not repaired. This was because the British Army had since become sufficiently impressed in his kites to hire Cody as Chief Instructor in Kiting at the Balloon School in Aldershot in 1906. Cody was charged with the formation of two kite sections of the Royal Engineers. It was this group that would evolve over the years into Air Battalion, Royal Engineers; No.1 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps; and then finally No.1 Squadron Royal Air Force.
[edit] 'Nulli Secundus'
During this period he also built a motorized kite that he wanted to develop into a man-carrying airplane. However the Army was more interested in airships, and during 1907 he was part of the team at Aldershot making British Army Dirigible No 1, christened Nulli Secundus, England's first powered airship. On October 5 the Nulli Secundus flew from Aldershot to London in 3 hours 25 minutes with Cody, the principal designer of the propulsion system and gondola, and Colonel J E Capper, onboard. After circling St Paul's Cathedral they attempted to return to Aldershot, but 18 mph headwinds forced them to land at Crystal Palace.
[edit] Cody aeroplanes
Later that year the Army decided to fund the completion of his airplane design, British Army Aeroplane No 1. After just under a year of construction he started testing the machine in September 1908, gradually lengthening his "hops" until they reached 1,390 feet on October 16. The machine was damaged at the end of this flight, which was announced as the first official flight of a heavier than air machine in the British Isles. The War Office then decided that there was no future in aeroplanes, and Cody's contract with the Army ended with no funding for further machines.
Cody continued on his own, however, building a new machine and receiving permission to use Laffan's Plain at Farnborough for his test flights. On June 7, 1910, Cody received Royal Aero Club certificate number 9. Cody carried passengers for the first time in the world on August 14 1909, first his old workmate Col. Capper, and then Lela Cody (Mrs Elizabeth Mary King). Cody made a world-record cross-country flight of 1 hour 3 minutes on August 29.
In 1910, using a newly-built aircraft Cody won the prestigious Michelin Cup with a flight of 4 hours 47 minutes. In 1911 the Cody III was the only British plane to complete the Daily Mail's 'Circuit of Great Britain' race, finishing fourth. The Cody V machine with a new 120 hp (90 kW) engine won the £5,000 prize at the Military Trials on Salisbury Plain in 1912.
Cody continued to work on aircraft using his own funds. On August 7, 1913 he was out for a joyride in his latest design, a floatplane, when it broke up at 500 ft and he and his passenger were both killed. He was buried with full military honours in the Aldershot Military Cemetery; the funeral procession drew an estimated crowd of 100,000.
Adjacent to Cody's own grave marker is a memorial to his only son, Samuel Franklin Leslie Cody, (father of Sam born 1913 and grandfather to S.F.'Colin'Cody) who joined the Royal Flying Corps and 'fell in action fighting four enemy machines' in 1917.
