Everyday treasures Museums collection tells nation’s untold stories
Fascinating tale of one of Scotland’s early aviation pioneers
SOME thought he was a little unhinged, others admired his chutzpah and gung-ho sense of adventure.
And for the weary folk who often endured a five-hour, stomach-churning journey on board the little steamer
St Ola, as it battled northern gales and the stormy seas of the Pentland Firth, Captain EE “Ted” Fresson provided a modern age of travel that would transform lives.
It was the early 1930s and Captain Fresson, in his little Gipsy Moth plane and with a bold idea to solve islanders’ transport woes, fired up its engines and made a name for himself as a pioneer of the golden age of aviation.
He was born in Surrey in 1891, when powered aviation was still a twinkle in the eyes of the Wright Brothers, and flight confined to man-carrying balloons, gliders, airships and, perhaps frighteningly, steam-powered aeroplanes that had a habit of failing to get very far.
Yet as times passed, he believed there was demand – indeed, a desperate need – to bring a reliable, comfortable and efficient mode of transport to Scotland’s most tricky to reach Highlands and Island communities.
Air travel, he believed, was the solution. “In fact, it became obvious,” he later reflected in his memoir, Air Road To The Isles. “A modern plane could fly across the cross-Pentland journey of 35 miles from Wick to Thurso to Kirkwall in 20 minutes. The steamer took four to five hours,” he wrote.
“The Pentland Firth could be very rough, the air could be much smoother. Provided the traffic density was sufficient, an air ferry couldn’t go wrong.”
His innovative, blue-sky thinking idea would – quite literally – take off.
And Capt Fresson, a former “joy ride” and aerobatics pilot, would become almost an accidental aviation pioneer, founder of Highland Airways Limited, and the first scheduled air service between Inverness, Wick and Kirkwall.
His pilot’s leather cap, goggles and flight logs are kept at Inverness Museum, and have now been included in a selection of objects from collections around the country intended to inspire visitors to delve deeper into the people and stories that have moulded modern Scotland.
Gathered by national tourism organisation VisitScotland and Museums Galleries Scotland, they include a glittering suffragette brooch of purple and green from Aberdeen Museum, a royal wedding invitation to a Dunfermline mill girl, and a leather whip, once used by Perth’s Glover Incorporation to punish misbehaving members and apprentices.
The young Ernest Edmund Fresson was just 18 years old and working for a tea merchant in London when Louis Bleriot made the first flight across the English Channel in a tiny aircraft powered by a 25hp Anzani engine. Within a few manic years fuelled by technical advances, the demands of war for new ways to kill the enemy and brave pilots determined to be the first to conquer the skies, the age of flight would, literally, take off.
Just two decades after seeing Bleriot’s plane in an exhibition, Capt Fresson would become an aviation pioneer himself, blazing a trail across the northern skies carrying mail, newspapers and passengers to the Highlands and Islands. He honed his flight skills during the First World War serving in the Royal Flying Corps and undergoing flying training in Canada, before moving to China where he was engaged in building and designing aircraft until the 1927 revolution.
Back in Britain, he became a joy ride pilot, taking passengers on fun trips to the skies in a second-hand Avro 504 bought for just £200, and as part of the famous Cobham’s Flying Circus air display team. But he soon realised that demand for fun flights was on the wane. And as he toured the Highlands offering joy rides and aerobatic displays, he spotted a gaping need among locals for an easier way to get around.
On August 2, 1931, he took his first fare-paying passenger from Wick to Orkney. Within a month, the Trans Penine Firth Air Route was up and running.
“The more I thought about it, the more the simple axiom dawned on me, that while there were routes which involved sea crossings, air travel had great possibilities,” he later wrote.
“I felt sure I had hit on something which had great potentialities.”
The problem, however, was raising the finance needed to run an air service to remote islands. A potential solution came in the form of mail deliveries – the power of flight would transform the service to remote areas, while a payload of post and newspapers meant a regular income.
But not everyone was on board. “I spent many days being passed from person to person,” he wrote, “telling my story and stressing the advantages of a mail service and early delivery of newspapers and explaining how advantageous a regular air service would be to the business population.
“Most people looked at me as though I were a creature from another world.”
Support eventually came from local businesses including Inverness motor
engineers Macrae & Dick. Within just six months of launching Highland Airways with its first scheduled service, Capt Fresson was expanding into chartered flights, whizzing businessmen from Aberdeen to Shetland and eventually offering airmail and passenger flights throughout the Highlands and Islands.
His fleet of planes opened up air links to Aberdeen, Perth and Glasgow, led to the establishment of the first runway at Inverness, and notched up several UK firsts – the first scheduled air service, the first domestic airmail service, and the first air ambulance service.
His Highland Airways business later amalgamated with Scottish Airways but nationalisation of the service to create British European Airways saw him lose his job in 1948, sparking fury among the communities transformed by his pioneering vision.
As well as his cap and goggles, the VisitScotland and Museum Galleries Scotland project has singled out a 1900 photograph of shipbuilders working on RRS Discovery to highlight Dundee’s role in constructing ships robust enough to travel through Arctic pack ice.
From Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries, there is a photograph of Barbara Unwin who, aged 19, was chosen by the city’s Winterthur Silk Mill to weave material for the Queen’s wedding dress.
It is accompanied by her invitation to attend the royal wedding.
Other items include a Society of Barbers box dating from 1724 from Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh used to preserve documents – reflecting the guilds and societies across the city which set standards, protected their trades and applied political pressure.
And from Glasgow Women’s Library, the project has selected a 1990s image of community activist Rahat Sayed, who promoted the personal development of Glasgow’s first generation migrant women through day trips, English lessons and art classes.
Vicki Miller, VisitScotland director of marketing and digital, said: “The UK visitor market is the largest for Scottish tourism and therefore it’s important, as part of our tourism recovery plan, that we highlight the fun and engaging experiences locals and people from the rest of the UK have on their doorstep.
“By working with Museums Galleries Scotland, we aim to raise awareness of all the incredible places where people can immerse themselves in art and history.
“It is particularly appropriate that we should team up with organisations telling the nation’s stories through their venues and artefacts during Scotland’s Year of Stories.
“The campaign provides a creative way to promote some of the lesserknown venues in Museums Galleries Scotland’s network.”