WYNDHAM (Poppy, 1893-1928, stage name of the Hon. Elsie Mackay, daughter of the 1st Earl of Inchcape, Actress & Aviator)

Engaging Signed Portrait Postcard Photograph, showing her seated all but full length in profile, her head turned to the viewer, her hand to her chin and her elbow resting on her knee, wearing a long dress and an embroidered 'helmet' hat with a light scarf round it, with a note on the verso 'Perished in an attempt to fly the Atlantic with Captain Hinchcliffe March 1928', no place, no date, circa remains of laying down on blank verso

In 1923 she took up flying and got her pilot's licence at the De Havilland Flying School, probably the second woman since World War I after 'Mrs Atkey' bought a plane. Her ambition was to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic. She was noted for driving her Rolls-Royce at great speed and was a familiar sight in her Avro biplane in the skies over South Ayrshire and Wigtownshire. She even participated in an "outside loop", the most dangerous of all stunts in air, with Capt. E.C.D. Herne as her pilot. During this manoeuvre her safety-strap broke but she clung to bracing wires while her body swung outside the plane like a stone twirled on the end of a piece of string. She was one of the first women in Britain to gain her Royal Aero Club pilot's licence and was later elected to the advisory committee of pilots to the British Empire Air League. She died attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean with Walter G. R. Hinchliffe in a single engined Stinson Detroiter

Item Date:  1920

Stock No:  56469