Item #98943 A rare and important photographic souvenir commemorating the first round-Australia solo flight, completed by Captain the Hon. Hugh Grosvenor, May-June 1929. The item, framed and glazed (external dimensions 315 x 815 mm), comprises a pair of original vintage gelatin silver photographs (each 150 x 200 mm, one signed in white ink by the Adelaide photographer, Darian Smith) mounted together with a hand-drawn ink route map (175 x 225 mm). The original matt is inscribed with basic details of the flight (between 6 May and 5 June 1929); it is further signed in ink by the pilot ('H.R. Grosvenor / Adelaide / 5/6/29'). Aviation, Captain Hugh GROSVENOR.

[Aviation]. GROSVENOR, Captain Hugh

A rare and important photographic souvenir commemorating the first round-Australia solo flight, completed by Captain the Hon. Hugh Grosvenor, May-June 1929. The item, framed and glazed (external dimensions 315 x 815 mm), comprises a pair of original vintage gelatin silver photographs (each 150 x 200 mm, one signed in white ink by the Adelaide photographer, Darian Smith) mounted together with a hand-drawn ink route map (175 x 225 mm). The original matt is inscribed with basic details of the flight (between 6 May and 5 June 1929); it is further signed in ink by the pilot ('H.R. Grosvenor / Adelaide / 5/6/29')

In 1928, Hugh Raufe Grosvenor (1904-1930) 'became ADC to Sir Alexander Hore Ruthven in South Australia. In 1929 he was the first person to fly solo round Australia in a light plane, a DH Moth with a Cirrus 2 engine' (Edward Wixted: 'The North-West Aerial Frontier, 1919-1934', [1985]). His next venture was an attempt at the Australia-England flight record of 13 days established in June 1929 by Kingsford Smith and Ulm. On Monday 6 January 1930, aged 25, he met his death when the experimental Wackett Widgeon II Amphibian crashed into Port Phillip Bay.