Starling Burgess

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

W. Starling Burgess(1878-1947) yacht designer, aviation pioneer, and naval architect.

W. Starling Burgess b.Dec.25, 1878 in Boston, son of Edward Burgess who died when Starling was 12. He attended Milton Academy and Harvard University. He was a partner in Burgess & Packard in 1902 with Alpheus Appleton Packard. In 1905 he established a yacht yard in Marblehead, Massachusetts and began designing and building yachts and boats.

In 1908 he became interested in aviation and in 1909 joined with airplane designer Augustus Moore Herring who had left Glenn Curtiss. They formed the Herring-Burgess Company and built the biplane Flying Fish which was flown over Plum Island April 17th 1910. The was first fully powered and controlled flight in New England. Herring-Burgess built several planes with a license from the Wright Brothers. Norman Prince and his friends hired Burgess to build a plane for them to race in the Gordon Bennett Cup Race.

In 1911 Herring left, and Greely S. Curtis and Frank H. Russell join Burgess to form the Burgess Company. In 1912 the Burgess Company built their first hydroplane designed by John William Dunne and soon was selling these Burgess-Dunne hydroplanes to the U.S.Army and Navy and one in 1914 to the Royal Canadian Air Force. He received the 3rd Collier Trophy to be issued in 1915 for his hydro-aeroplane. Burgess Company became the largest employer in Marblehead with 800 employees building these hydroplanes.

When the US entered WWI, the Burgess Company was sold to John N. Willys (who then sold it to Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company) and Burgess joined the Navy, became a Lieutenant Commander and designed planes for the Navy.

After the war he returned to boat design and construction and later designed three successful J-class yacht defenders of the America's Cup: Enterprise in 1930, Rainbow in 1934, and Ranger in 1937.

In 1922 he formed the company Burgess, Swasey & Paine with A. Loring Swasey and Frank C. Paine in Boston and had Lewis Francis Herreshoff working with them. They designed several yachts, including the Advace for John S. Lawrence, the Gosson for Charles Francis Adams III, and the ELLEN for Charles Foster.

In 1926 he dissolved his design firm of Burgess, Swasey & Paine and joined the firm Burgess & Morgan, Ltd in New York City. In 1930 he was commuting to NYC and living in Darien, Connecticut with his wife Else and 2 children.

Burgess was friends with Buckminster Fuller and was helping when Fuller was designing and building his aluminum Dymaxion car.

In 1935 he became a consulting naval architect for the Aluminum Company of America with his office at the Bath Iron Works (and home in Wiscasset, Maine), where he promoted the use of corrosion resistant alloys for ships. The Alumette was designed by him and built at the Bath Iron Works. He also designed the sailing yacht Ranger with aluminum masts for Harold Stirling Vanderbilt and he worked closely with Geerd Hendel at that time.

During World War II he was employed as a civilian engineer and worked for the Anti-Submarine Development Detachment of the US Atlantic Fleet. In 1946 he was working at the Stevens Institute of Technology on damage control research.

Starling married 5 times. 1st in 1901 to Helene Adams Willard(1882-1902). Secondly in 1904 to Rosamond Tudor(b.1878) the portrait artist and granddaughter of Frederic Tudor and had 2 sons Edward(1905-1910) who drowned after falling of their boat, Fredrick(b.1907) and a daughter Starling(b.1915) aka Tasha who changed her name to Tasha Tudor, 3rd in 1925 to Else Foss and had two children Diana and Ann, and later in 1933 to Nannie Dale Biddle and in 1945 to Majorie Young.

He was described by a friend of his last wife thusly: " With all his brilliance, he is a child, and that is part of his charm. He will not face hard facts, but will hide from them and will love the person who shields him from them."

[edit] References