Frederick Brearey

Frederick William Brearey
Born	(1816-02-18)18 February 1816 Stillingfleet, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
Died	31 January 1896(1896-01-31) (aged 79) Cornhill, London, England, United Kingdom
Citizenship	British
Occupations	Co-Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain
Years active	1866-1896
Era	Victorian
Known for	Aeronautics pioneer and inventor
Spouse	Elizabeth Selby
Awards	Gold Medal, Société française de navigation aérienne (1875) [1]

Frederick William Brearey (born on 18 February 1816 in Stillingfleet and died on 31 January 1896 in London) was a British aeronautical inventor and pioneer. He cofounded the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1866, ^[2] now the Royal Aeronautical Society, and served as its Honorary Secretary for thirty years until his death. ^[3] He is widely regarded as one of the pioneers and founding figures of aeronautics and heavier-than-air flight. ^[4]

Brearey played a key role in proposing and organizing the First Aeronautical Exhibition at The Crystal Palace, Sydehnam, London, in 1868. ^[5] This exhibition brought together 77 entries, including models, plans, machinery, and aerial apparatus illustrating contemporary experiments and concepts in flight. Although many contributions were experimental, the event heightened public and scientific interest in aerial navigation.

Throughout his tenure with the Aeronautical Society, Brearey maintained correspondence with leading innovators of the era and helped foster international exchange on flight research. Archival letters show his engagement with other experimenters, including James Glaisher and John Stringfellow, among others. ^{[6] [7]}

Brearey made a "wave action" aeroplane model driven by a rubber band. It had rigid spars (elsewhere called "bowsprits") which beat up and down, trailing undulating wings of fabric behind them, whose action propelled the model forward with "limited success." ^[8] He filed for patents on this craft in Britain in 1879 ^[9] and later in the U.S. ^{[10] [11]}

Brearey published more than 15 articles about aeronautical subjects from 1866 to 1883. ^{[12] [13]}

The 1880 and 1885 patents, as well as Brearey's correspondences, identify his location at Maidenstone Hill in Greenwich in the Hundred of Blackheath, Kent.

Life

Frederick William Brearey was born on 18 February 1816 at Stillingfleet, near Scarborough, Yorkshire in England.

His father was a friend of Sir George Cayley, the aristocratic scientist now regarded as the father of aeronautics. Members of Brearey's family witnessed Cayley’s early gliding experiments, and although Brearey later stated he had not been directly influenced by this as a child, Cayley's papers — published in Mechanics' Magazine — became a foundational source for his later work. ^[4]

From an early age Brearey was described as "a dreamer of aerial dreams," but he did not begin serious aeronautical experimentation until the mid-1860s.

References

1. "A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY" (PDF). The Royal Aeronautical Society. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
2. History of the Society at Royal Aeronautical Society web site
3. Who was Frederick W. Brearey? Archived 2013-09-27 at the Wayback Machine at The Sutherland Collection
4. "THE LATE MR. F. W. BREAREY" (PDF). Cambridge University Press. The Royal Aeronautical Society. Retrieved 30 December 2025.
5. "The Royal Aeronautical Society: Part 1 - The early years". The Royal Aeronautical Society. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
6. "Original letter from F W Brearey (Hon. Sec. of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain) to John Stringfellow".
7. "Typescript from F W Brearey (Hon. Sec. of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain) to James Glaisher".
8. Gibbs-Smith, Charles. 1970. Aviation. London: HMSO. pages 48,50.
9. Patent 2376 in Britain in 1897, according to Griffith Brewer and Patrick Y. Alexander, 1893, Aeronautics: An abridgment of aeronautical specifications filed at the patent office from A.D. 1815 to A.D. 1891, London; republished 1965 by Boekhandel en Antiquariaat, Amsterdam
10. "Frederick William Brearey". The Pioneers : An Anthology. CTIE. 2002-01-30. Retrieved 2012-11-15.
11. US patent 234947, "Aerial apparatus", and US patent 320042, "Apparatus for effecting aerial navigation"
12. Brearey's publications listed on WorldCat
13. Brockett, Paul. 1910. Bibliography of Aeronautics Smithsonian Institution. pp. 149-151.