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Post by scrooge on May 15, 2012 11:31:43 GMT 12
Ah, the joys of discussions based on selective mis-quotation.
Newspapers can be as inaccurate as 40 year old memories, the only picture of me in the NZ Herald, is not actually me. I was there but not in that photo (or maybe the other way around, it was 20 years ago and I don't remember).
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 15, 2012 12:34:20 GMT 12
Yes, regarding the newspaper accuracy look at the nonsense from The Press I quoted in the post at the toip of this page.
As for long distant memory, I am having trouble recalling with accuracy things I did 20 years ago. I would hate to be asked to recall somehting fifty years after the fact and expect it to all be accurate.
Admittedly I'd imagine very little of interest ever happens at Temuka (or South Canterbury for that matter) so maybe seeing an aeroplane at the beginning of the 20th Century would indeed stick in people's minds but it seems to me that accurately pinpointing a date might be more difficult without the aid of a diary, letter or news report at the time. Did any of these witnesses keep a journal or diary?
Did they write to freinds and say they'd seen a man flyng? You'd think that would be a big thing to skite about to relatives in another town or city. Is there any written proof at all?
I also wonder how they were questioned. Perhaps interviewee No. 1 put an estimate on the date, and then researcher went to others and said "Well such and such says he saw it on such and such a date, does that fit with you" and they answered "Yeah, maybe". I mean, a leading question can get the answer a research wants. Were these questions put to individuals carefully or was it a bit of a mish mash?
Maybe it was broadcast in a newspaper that interviewee reckoned it was that date, and 40 people read it and agreed, though maybe they were only agreeing because someone else had taken the responsibility of pinpointing the date.
How many people were asked about that date and said no, it can't have been then as such and such. Were their views also recorded or simply disgarded as they didn't fit into the picture?
Please don't take this as criticism of the research, I don't know how it was done and am curious to discover if they were careful not to taint their witnesses with other people's evidence. If anyone knows I'd be keen to find out.
I have seen TV programmes about memory and interpretation of crime scenes. They have done set ups. Staright after an event 20 people will give 20 different stories of what they saw. Go back to them a week later and at least 10 of them will tell a different story as the details are no longer fresh in their minds. It gets worse as time goes by, hence the reason to take witness statements immediately before the mind warps the picture in their heads. 50 years later, after probably having seen hundreds of aeroplanes, etc, who knows what other memories have morphed into the original memory of that day?
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Post by errolmartyn on May 15, 2012 13:24:18 GMT 12
"Admittedly I'd imagine very little of interest ever happens at Temuka (or South Canterbury for that matter) so maybe seeing an aeroplane at the beginning of the 20th Century would indeed stick in people's minds but it seems to me that accurately pinpointing a date might be more difficult without the aid of a diary, letter or news report at the time. Did any of these witnesses keep a journal or diary?
Did they write to freinds and say they'd seen a man flyng? You'd think that would be a big thing to skite about to relatives in another town or city. Is there any written proof at all?"
Dave,
You would have to think so, wouldn't you? If anything further is to be found regarding Pearse's progress with his first aeroplane, journals, diaries or letters of the time seem to be the most likely sources from which it would come. Perhaps some still survive but any remarks about Pearse buried within them has simply so far gone unrecognised by those who might hold any such documents.
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 15, 2012 13:32:05 GMT 12
"I also wonder how they were questioned. Perhaps interviewee No. 1 put an estimate on the date, and then researcher went to others and said "Well such and such says he saw it on such and such a date, does that fit with you" and they answered "Yeah, maybe". I mean, a leading question can get the answer a research wants. Were these questions put to individuals carefully or was it a bit of a mish mash?
Maybe it was broadcast in a newspaper that interviewee reckoned it was that date, and 40 people read it and agreed, though maybe they were only agreeing because someone else had taken the responsibility of pinpointing the date.
How many people were asked about that date and said no, it can't have been then as such and such. Were their views also recorded or simply disgarded as they didn't fit into the picture?"
I have been informed that George Bolt reported at a meeting of the Christchurch branch of the AHSNZ that he felt he was getting nowhere with information about Pearse until it was suggested that he might have flown before the Wrights. Suddenly some folk began to 'remember' Pearse making flight attempts prior to 1904. It is also known that at least one witness who was approached refused to sign an affidavit when asked. Was this perhaps because he/she offered a much later 1909 or 1910 date that didn't fit with a pre-Wrights flight?
Errol
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Post by nuuumannn on May 16, 2012 15:48:58 GMT 12
To throw a spanner in the works, I have a few offerings. The first is text from a letter from Charles Gibbs-Smith to George Bolt about Pearse, whom Bolt had sent information to Gibbs-Smith in advance of the publication of Gibbs-Smoth's book on early aviation pioneers:
"Dear Mr Bolt, I hope you will not mind my writing to you direct and also frankly about the Pearse claims. I am sorry that these come just a little too late for inclusion in my large official book, which I have written for the Science Museum entitled The Aeroplane: an Historical Survey, which HMSO will publish next spring. I hope you will not think that I am either flippant or cynical from what you read in my letters in Flight [magazine]. I am, for my sins, in this history game professionally and I have had to deal on and on with claims for years. To say that I am browned off is putting it mildly, but I try and bring whatever brains I have to bear on every new claim. I am, very seriously, extremely pleased that you are investigating the Pearse claims. As I expect you know, I am on the committee of the new history group of the Royal Aeronautical Society, so I shall be in the thick of it when you turn in your report. The reason I am browned off is that those advancing claims seldom have either the intention or the means by which to establish facts. In my experience you find a claim put forward with the intention to demonstrate it to be true far in advance of any wish to demonstrate facts and assess the claim. For example, it took me from 1953 till 1955 to explode the Preston Watson claim: after my friend Oliver Stewart had rather naughtily published both the claim and the so-called 1903 photo without letting any of us know, the first thing that struck me was the completely non-1903 configuration look of that machine in the photo. The rest was plod, plod, plod until the late J.Y. Watson admitted that his great edifice was false, and this after producing eye witnesses to the actual event. The eye witness who tells you what he saw fifty or more years after is, as often as not, completely unreliable, and this was driven home forcibly in the Watson case. People simply do not remember without prejudice. Even A.V. Roe before he died had his solicitors issue a statement on his behalf stating that at no time did he ever use the "pull-up" slope at the end of the Brooklands finishing straight, either in gliding or powered tests in 1908; yet we finally dug out a photo in a French paper dated bang on the spot, which showed him right at the top of it. So, I pray you, beware of eye witnesses.
Next, it often strikes me that it is highly peculiar that these claims are made, they are so often for 1903. Since the Wrights did not fly until December 17th, any claim would fairly certain fall before that. But you notice these claims are seldom for 1902, or 1901 and never for 1904 or 1905! The year 1903 has a mesmeric attraction simply and solely because it will ante-date the Wrights, if proved... These old men should not blow off to the press unless they are prepared to stand by what they say. This is what [James] Watson did and even tried to gate-crash the Wrights dinner at the Dorchester on the strength of the claims he had to admit years later were spurious. If what the reporter reported was inaccurate, Pearse should go for the man who wrote it. At present, on the quotes I have before me the whole idea of a 1903 test is a mess and not worth anything as it stands... I would also like to know everybody's age at the times in question; also why Pearse left the act of patenting so late, if, that is to say, the control system in the patent is similar to that in the alleged 1903 aircraft. I found that the rocker mechanism which [Preston] Watson was claimed to have incorporated in 1903 in his machine was actually suggested in his mind as a result of having learnt of the Wright's method in 1908 and was not patented until 1908 - 1909. I would also like to know if there was any contemporary newspaper account, any diary entry or what have you, of the Pearse test. As you will see from my latest letter in Flight [magazine] published before your last leter, the Library of Congress aeronautical experts can find no trace of material which the present Mr Pearse specifically claims existed.... But once again, be extra careful about eye witnesses: they are often not worth the paper they are written on, if that paper is not contemporary or near contemporary.
Yours truly,
Charles H. Gibbs-Smith."
Preston Watson was an early aviation pioneer, whom in Scotland a rather similar situation has arisen with regards to claims of powered flight before the Wrights. Fortunately with Watson, much of his work can be verified as to when it took place, his first aeroplane wasn't completed until 1909 and it did not fly and it's likely he didn't fly a powered aeroplane of his own design until 1912.
Nevertheless, this did not stop his brother James from claiming in 1953 that Preston flew a powered aeroplane 50 years earlier. To support this he gathered eye witness statements from those who saw it. He even included a photo of the aeroplane in which Preston did this, but the motor, which is clearly visible was not built until 1910 tended to go against the claim. Once proven wrong, those sworn statements have been found to be meaningless, since James Watson admitted the whole thing was false a few years later in a magazine article.
With Pearse I'm betting none of those eye witness statements were made earlier than the early 1950s, which instantly renders them subjective, to say the least. If not, why would those folk wait so long to have made some sort of statement? Surely Temuka is as far from anywhere as to make an event like the flying of an aeroplane pretty important? Why then, did it only come to light fifty years later? After all, there are no references to it in any newspapers or diaries or anything around 1903 or 1902. Strange that.
Perhaps the question should be, "Who flew first? Preston Watson or Richard Pearse?"
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 16, 2012 16:42:22 GMT 12
Very interesting Grant. I have seen people on the FlyPast Forum reckoning still that Preston Watson beat the Wrights, obviously they never saw the story where the brother admitted he made it up.
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Post by nuuumannn on May 16, 2012 17:26:50 GMT 12
Yep, people tend to see what they want to in these cases. What's not mentioned in the letter is that James Watson wrote to Gibbs-Smith refuting his own story. There's lots of supporting evidence against James Watson's claims at any rate. Preston Watson himself never said anything of the sort and he had a number of articles published in Flight and The Aero describing his work around 1914 until his untimely death in 1915. Nevertheless, there are plenty of parallels between Pearse and Watson's stories. Watson, like Pearse was a rather clever bloke who liked to tinker with stuff. He built his aeroplanes in relative seclusion, but did make a statement in The Aero in 1909 claiming that he was about to test a flying machine - it didn't fly unfortunately. Take a look at my website: rockingwings.tripod.comit goes into his novel rocking wing method of lateral control. What Watson did achieve was interesting enough, without having to invent stuff about him.
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Post by errolmartyn on May 17, 2012 13:25:52 GMT 12
Letter from me that appeared in The Press of 17 May 2012:
Played them false
Pearse family member Evan Gardiner’s Perspective piece about Richard Pearse (11 May) repeats much of the erroneous matter that he posted on April 25 and later on the Wings Over New Zealand forum (http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi) under the pseudonym "Chunk", only later to reveal who ‘Chunk’ is. Gardiner has since also posted his Press article on the forum, where I have responded in some detail about the errors. Gardiner’s main contention appears to be that 30, 37, 48 or 49 (the number changes each time he writes) witnesses cannot have been wrong in remembering half a century later that the Waitohi inventor had made "attempts at powered flight" over the period 1902 to 1904. These witnesses, many of them children at the time, are mostly named (but rarely in full or their ages given) in Gordon Ogilvie’s The Riddle of Richard Pearse. Gardiner admits on the forum to having only "skim read" part of my book’s chapter on Pearse, and so it would seem with the Ogilvie book. Had he read it more carefully he would have found that only a small number of the witnesses he mentions claimed to have remembered 1902 or 1903 "aircraft development" or flight attempts, or even for 1904. The vast majority believed or remembered a later date or were unable to give a date at all. Richard Pearse’s own 1909 statement that he did nothing practical until 1904, the start date that he also repeats in 1915, 1928 and 1945, confirms that the witnesses memories, though no doubt sincerely held, have played them false.
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 17, 2012 13:40:07 GMT 12
My response (in yellow) to Gardiner's post of 14 May (#37):
Given free rein I could very easily directly counter each point that Martyn has made with his attempt to discredit myself and my article published in The Press 10th May. I doubt it somehow.
However to do so would extend the size of the resulting post to an unacceptable level and I can already sense a feeling of boredom with this subject creeping in.
I am certainly not presenting myself as either a historian or researcher, but viewed dispassionately, I would have thought that a ‘historian’ should be able to objectively approach his subject with an open mind to the possibility that there are other points of view to be considered from other ‘historians’. And above all that these other researchers deserve respect for their work and that your own view should be presented in a factual, unemotional and impersonal way. In an ‘impersonal way’ – as demonstrated no doubt by your reference earlier to ‘Martyn’s bluster’! Something about pots and kettles comes to mind.
Not so in this case. Gordon Ogilvie and Geoff Rodliffe, both respectable authors of books documenting the history of Richard Pearse have been attacked by Martyn. For example, in the Press 28th April 2012 article used to promote Martyn’s book, the reporter notes: ‘He (Martyn) scorns aircraft engineer Geoff Rodliffe and Pearse biographer Gordon Ogilvie……’, and from this very message board on April 7th 2011 Martyn posted “contrary to the imaginative rubbish promoted by Mr Rodliffe, et al over the years,…….’ ‘scorn’ was not my word, but I stand by my comments regarding Rodliffe’s attempts at dating flight attempts by Pearse and his promotion of the notorious so-called ‘replica’ of Pearse’s aeroplane.
And other professionals don’t fare much better either. On the previous page of this thread on this forum Martyn has totally rubbished the TV and newspaper reporters/editors that he has had to deal with recently while promoting his book. ‘totally rubbished’? What utter nonsense. I have done no such thing. It would help if you would properly read material before commenting upon it.
Whatever, in the interests of accuracy, for the record and for the benefit of other readers of this site, I would like to offer these few bullet points for their consideration.
• I suggest the release of The Timaru Post, November 17, 1909 article by the Timaru Herald on 24th April, seriously undermined Martyn’s campaign to discredit Pearse because it revealed the advanced stage of Pearse’s aircraft. Obviously it would have taken many years of development to get to this level. As I have explained previously, the ‘release’ of the Timaru Post report of 17 November 1909 was due to research by myself and a fellow researcher. The Timaru Herald was not aware of the report’s existence until pointed in that direction by our work.
• In a Press article dated 28th April the following was attributed to Martyn: “Errol Martyn, has unearthed a published newspaper letter written by Pearse himself………..”. Fact is, this letter has been available for many years. This letter from Pearse to The Dunedin Evening Star on May 10, 1915 was reprinted in the book ‘The Riddle Of Richard Pearse’ by Gordon Ogilvie published in 1973. Yes, unfortunately this was an incorrect interpretation by the writer of the article.
• By Martyn choosing to quote a selected part out of that letter, (Pearse) “started out to solve the problem about March 1904” and to not include the very next sentence “The Wrights started at about the same time.”, Martyn has also chosen to completely misrepresent the meaning of Pearse’s letter. No I have not. When coupled with all of the other 1904 start dates provided by Pearse himself his comment about the Wrights, of whom he had little understanding, is irrelevant.
• Briefly, in reply to one of Martyn’s many postings today; where he quotes from material held by the Wigram Airforce Museum, (Pearse did) “not attempt anything practical with the idea until, in 1904.” Oh dear, more faulty reading on Gardiner’s part, I’m afraid. I have quoted no such thing from the museum material. The quote used here in fact comes from The Timaru Post of 17 November 1909!
The period 1902 to the end of 1903 was a time in history when powered, controlled flight was not a “practical” reality anywhere. So for Pearse it could just as easilly meant that until he could actually control an aircraft in flight it was not yet “practical” for him either. More grasping at straws here, I’m afraid. Incidentally, there certainly was powered and controlled flight well before December 1903 – but that was per airship not aeroplane!
• Finally, as a previous commentator has noted, Martyn is seriously caught between a rock and a hard place here. For Martyn to change history by no longer accepting that Pearse was involved in building and testing his aircraft prior to 1904, he has to also establish that there is no value to be placed on any of those eye witness accounts between 1902 and 1904. Martyn also has to be in complete denial of the fact that our own common sense will show that we can all recall a number of special events and people we have known and to hold those memories for ever. Martyn’s response to this irrefutable fact will also allow him to have the last word on this matter! “Not commonsense but provable nonsense.” No historian can ‘change’ history. I have simply reported the facts as supported by the evidence. Nice, however, to have some agreement, even if confined to the last sentence!
Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 17, 2012 14:16:53 GMT 12
If nothing else ever comes of this whole affair, at least the forum has received a nice plug in a big daily newspaper. Cheers Errol!
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Post by errolmartyn on May 17, 2012 15:48:07 GMT 12
If nothing else ever comes of this whole affair, at least the forum has received a nice plug in a big daily newspaper. Cheers Errol! Dave, You will note that I carefully avoided naming the moderator in the letter. I didn't wish to be blamed should you have been overwhelmed with a barrage of hate mail! Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 17, 2012 18:51:08 GMT 12
That would be nothing new, haha.
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 17, 2012 18:51:58 GMT 12
Only the hate mail normally comes when I have had nothing to do with the thread and others have done all the upsetting...
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Post by ErrolC on Sept 17, 2017 17:56:11 GMT 12
I was pleased when one of my favourite history podcasts referenced Errol Martyn's work in their recent episode Five First Flights. Interesting that there was a time when the most common feedback to them mentioning the Wrights was about Pearse!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Sept 17, 2017 18:20:12 GMT 12
The commentators at Reno the past couple of days have mentioned how Kiwis believe our "James Pearse" was first to fly.... so many levels of wrong
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