John Weston (aviator)

Did You Know?

• Weston's registration of birth is missing from national records in Pretoria; he is said to have been born on 17 June 1873 in an ox wagon at Fort Marshall, northern Natal.
• His mother and sister, Lucy, died of cholera in China in 1928.
• On 24 July 1950, Weston and his wife were injured in an attack; he died three days later at age 78.

Early career

John Weston began his engineering career in 1888 as an apprentice with the J. Jaspar company in Liege, Belgium. He later joined de Puydt and Poncin Lighting and Power Company, where he advanced to partner and technical advisor. Between 1900 and 1901, he founded M. Weston and Co., a firm producing electrical lights in Liege. During the Second Boer War, he returned to South Africa to fight alongside the Boers. After the war left him destitute, he borrowed £100 from a friend and headed to America. In 1903, he sought membership in the British Institute of Electrical Engineers and set up an office in Birkenhead, Liverpool. Through the Russian Embassy in Washington, he secured an engineering post on the Chinese Eastern Railway near Lake Baikal, where he picked up Russian. When Japan declared war on Russia in 1904, he was stranded but managed to escape via Port Arthur, Manchuria. He became a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society on 17 September 1904. Returning to South Africa in early 1905, he married Elizabeth Maria Jacoba Roux in Bloemfontein in August 1906. The couple had three children. Weston then took up farming at Doornpoort and later Kalkdam, moving the family to Brandfort in May 1909.

Contribution to aviation

John Weston first tried to build an aircraft in 1907–1908 at Kalkdam, using a Voisin design and a Panhard engine, but the engine lacked enough power and the machine never got off the ground. He left for Europe in September 1910, stopping in England before heading to France to learn to fly. At the Henri Farman school in Étampes, he made his first solo flight on 30 December 1910, passed his pilot test a few days later on 5 January 1911, and received French Aero Club certificate number 357 on 3 February 1911. When he came back to South Africa later that year, he brought a plane he called the Weston-Farman, fitted with a 50 hp Gnome motor. Based in Brandfort, he became a dealer in aircraft and parts, selling Blériot monoplanes, Farman and Bristol biplanes, Gnome engines, and Chauviére propellers. As a founding member of the Aeronautical Society of South Africa, he set up the John Weston Aviation Company to raise money for a flying school with its own permanent airfield. In June 1911, he set a South African endurance record by flying the Weston-Farman for eight and a half minutes over Kimberley. His company then put on flying shows with five planes—one Weston-Farman, three Bristols, and one Farman—in cities including Johannesburg, Lorenzo Marques, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Kenilworth, East London, King Williams Town, and Queenstown. In 1912, he failed to get a job advising Jan Smuts’s government on buying military aircraft and training pilots. A dust storm wrecked his airplane at Brandfort in January 1913, and his hangar there was burned down by arson in early February 1912. He turned down a joint venture with fellow aviator Cecil Compton Paterson.

World War I

John Weston relocated to England in June 1913 and by October of that year was employed by the Willow's Aircraft Company, focusing on military dirigibles. He earned British Aeronaut's Certificate No. 38 and Airship Pilot's Certificate No. 23 in February 1914. When World War I began, he joined South African forces in the South West Africa Campaign, now Namibia, where his duties involved establishing and maintaining airfields. He became a lieutenant in the South Africa Air Corps on 6 February 1915. Aircraft for South Africa’s military arrived on 1 May 1915 but were unusable; Weston set up beacons for pilots as far as Garub in present-day Namibia. Following the German surrender in South West Africa on 9 July 1915, he and his family sailed to England, reaching Tilbury on 9 September 1915. On 1 July 1916, he was made a temporary sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve for service with the Royal Naval Air Service. His first assignment was to No. 3 Aeroplane Wing at Manston, and he was promoted to temporary acting lieutenant on 28 September 1916. His wing operated from Luxeuil-les-Bains, where he calibrated compasses, supplied marked maps, conducted intelligence work, rescued downed airmen, and handled compensation for local farmers and residents, aided by his French language skills. From 28 July 1916, he also worked as a translator. On 2 April 1917, he became a compass officer with No. 2 Wing, RNAS, at Moudros on Lemnos, Greece. There he oversaw aerodrome construction, drainage, and roadmaking, and briefly served as an intelligence officer in Port Said, Egypt. He trained pilots, crew, and engineers of the Hellenic Naval Air Service, and was described as a thorough, efficient, energetic, and hardworking mapping officer. He remained at Moudros at least through 1918. Between 1919 and 1921, he made two trips to the United States on Air Ministry business, and left service on 22 November 1923.

Travel

Weston loved travel and encouraged it in his children. While in the US between 1919 and 1921, he purchased a Detroit-manufactured Commerce one tonne truck with a Continental N engine. He shipped it to England and converted it into a motor home sleeping five, painted yellow with black trim and named Suid Afrika. The vehicle had a large wooden structure on the rear chassis, windows at the front and in the lantern roof, and could be hoisted upright onto a ship's deck. A sign read, 'Our mansion: 7 by 14 feet, Our field: the world, Our family: mankind.' The family toured 18 weeks from England to Greece, lived in Athens for two years, then returned in the Suid Afrika to England and South Africa in May 1924. In 1925 he traveled extensively through southern Africa. In 1926 the family attempted to return to England overland, but in 1927 he found the motor home unsuitable and returned to Cape Town. The Suid Afrika remains on display at the Winterton Museum. A second motor home, the Prairie Schooner, built on the Commerce base with a removable canvas-covered living area, was used from 1931–1932 for a trip from Cape Agulhas to Belgrade and back. It later featured in the 1975 International Veteran and Vintage Car Rally and was donated to the Winterton Museum by his son-in-law.