Archdeacon Prize

Did You Know?

• Archdeacon spoke Esperanto, which he learned in 1908, and wrote a book titled 'Why I became an Esperanto speaker'.
• In 1906 Archdeacon commissioned a propeller-driven motorcycle, the Aéromotocyclette Anzani, which achieved a timed speed of 79.5 km/h.
• Archdeacon is widely cited as the first aeroplane passenger in Europe when piloted by Henry Farman at Ghent on 29 May 1908.

Motoring

Archdeacon participated in several early motor races. In 1894 he finished 17th in the world's first motor race, driving a Serpollet steamer from Paris to Rouen. He placed 7th in the 1896 Paris-Marseilles-Paris Trail driving a Delahaye, and 21st in the 1897 Paris-Dieppe Trail. In 1899 he finished 8th in the Nice-Castellane-Nice race.

Sponsor of aviation

In April 1900 the Aéro-Club de France announced the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize of one hundred thousand francs for a round trip from Saint-Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back in under thirty minutes; Alberto Santos-Dumont won it on 19 October 1901. After learning of the Wright brothers' glider flights in 1903, Archdeacon donated 3000 francs to the Archdeacon committee of the Aéro-Club de France to sponsor aviation competitions. That same year he commissioned an imperfect copy of the 1902 Wright glider, which lacked lateral control. In April 1904 it was tested on the dunes at Merlimont near Berck-sur-Mer. In March 1905 he commissioned a second glider from Gabriel Voisin; it broke apart in an unmanned test. A third glider, the Voisin-Archdeacon floatplane glider, introduced the Hargrave cell to European aviation. It was successfully towed on the River Seine, rising about 18 m and flying about 610 m, but was damaged in its next test. In 1903 Archdeacon and the Aéro-Club de France announced the Coupe d'Aviation Ernest Archdeacon, a silver trophy for the first flight of more than 25 metres by a heavier-than-air craft. Later, the Aéro-Club de France offered a prize of 1500 francs for the first person to fly 100 m.

Scepticism toward the Wright brothers

In November 1905 the Wright brothers' letter describing their achievements was published in l'Auto. This polarized the Aero Club de France: a minority believed the claims, but the majority, led by Archdeacon, thought they were false. By 1906 European newspapers called the Wrights bluffeurs. Archdeacon wrote articles stating that the French would make the first public demonstration of powered flight. In August 1908, after Wilbur Wright's demonstrations at Les Hunaudières, Archdeacon publicly admitted he had done them an injustice.