Harold H. Piffard

{{Short description|British artist and aviator (1867–1939)}} {{good article}} {{Use British English|date=April 2023}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}} {{Infobox artist | name = Harold H. Piffard | image = H. Piffard - The Thin Red Line - restoration.jpg | caption = ''The Thin Red Line'' by Piffard | birth_date = {{Birth date|1867|08|10|df=y}} | birth_place = Marylebone, London, England | death_date = {{Death date and age|1939|01|17|1867|08|10|df=y}} | death_place = | resting_place = Old Chiswick Cemetery | spouse = {{ubl|{{marriage|Helena Katherine Docetti Walker|4 June 1895|27 November 1900|end=d.}}|{{marriage|Eleanor Margaret Hoile|8 January 1902}}}} | known_for = {{hlist|Artist|aviator|illustrator}} | notable_works = | style = | movement = Orientalism }}

'''Harold Hume Piffard''' (10 August 1867 – 17 January 1939) was a British artist, illustrator, and one of the first British aviators.<ref name=Kirk-355-362>{{ cite book |last=Kirkpatrick |first=Robert J. |title=The Men Who Drew For Boys (And Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children's Books: 1844–1970 |chapter=Harold Piffard |pages=355–362 |date=11 July 1905 |publisher=Robert J. Kirkpatrick |location=London }}</ref><ref name="Manton 2006">{{cite journal |last1=Manton |first1=Colin |title=Harold Piffard of Bedford Park, Artist and Aviator Extraordinaire |journal=Brentford & Chiswick Local History Journal |date=2006 |volume=15 |url=https://brentfordandchiswicklhs.org.uk/harold-piffard-of-bedford-park-artist-and-aviator-extraordinaire/ |access-date=1 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191101084947/https://brentfordandchiswicklhs.org.uk/harold-piffard-of-bedford-park-artist-and-aviator-extraordinaire/ |archive-date=1 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Harold Hume Piffard (British, 1867–1938) |url=http://www.theknohlcollection.com/portfolio/detail/loneliness/ |publisher=The Knohl Collection |accessdate=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109212602/http://www.theknohlcollection.com/portfolio/detail/loneliness/ |archive-date=9 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> He studied art at the Royal Academy Schools in London, exhibiting his first painting at the Royal Academy in 1895. He painted a wide variety of subjects in oils and watercolour, including history paintings. At the same time he worked as an illustrator, both for periodicals such as ''The Strand Magazine'' and ''The Illustrated London News'', and illustrating novels. From 1907 he became interested in aviation, and began flying in 1909 in an aircraft he built himself. He made his first flights in West London near his Chiswick home; in 1910 he flew at Shoreham-by-Sea, near his old school, Lancing College.

== Personal life ==

Harold Hume Piffard was born in Marylebone, the sixth son of Charles Piffard and his wife Emily, née Hume, the daughter of James Hume, a barrister and Magistrate at Calcutta. They had married in Calcutta on 1 June 1858.<ref name="Hume-Piffard">{{cite journal |title=Marriages |journal=Homeward Mail from India, China and the East |issue=Tuesday 27 July 1858 |pages=8 |date=27 July 1858 }}</ref> Charles was Clerk of the Crown in the High Court of Calcutta; Piffard's four eldest brothers were all born in India.<ref name="Kirk-356">{{cite book |last=Kirkpatrick |first=Robert J. |title=The Men Who Drew For Boys (And Girls): 101 Forgotten Illustrators of Children's Books: 1844–1970 |chapter=Harold Piffard |pages=356 |year=1905 |publisher=Robert J. Kirkpatrick |location=London }}</ref> Harold was educated at Lancing College, being sent there together with his older brother Lawrence in 1877.<ref name="Kirk-356" /><ref name="Allingham">{{cite web |last1=Allingham |first1=Philip V.  |title=Harold Hume Piffard: A Brief Life (1867–1939) |url=https://victorianweb.org/art/illustration/piffard/bio.html |website=The Victorian Web |access-date=24 January 2023}}</ref> He briefly ran away from school to find employment on the stage, sleeping on the Embankment for several nights while he visited theatres and music halls.<ref name="Kirk-356" /> In February 1884, he travelled around India and worked on a tea plantation. In 1889, he returned to London and began to study art at the Royal Academy Schools, exhibiting his first painting at the Royal Academy in 1895. On 4 June 1895 he married Helena Walker at St John's Free Church in Dundee.<ref name=Walker-Piffard>{{cite web |last=National Records of Scotland |title=1895 Walker, Helena K D (Statutory registers Marriages 282/1 82) |website=ScotlandsPeople |date=7 June 1895 |url=https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/view-image/nrs_stat_marriages/818462?return_row=0 |accessdate=10 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200411024041/https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/view-image/nrs_stat_marriages/818462%3Freturn_row%3D0 |archive-date=11 April 2020 |url-status=live }}</ref> They had four children. Helena died soon after giving birth to her fourth child in 1900; the baby died a few months later.<ref name="Ramus 2021" /> In 1902, Piffard married Eleanor Hoile in Edinburgh; they had one son,<ref name="Ramus 2021" /> and lived in Addison Road (now Addison Grove), Bedford Park, Chiswick, in the west of London.<ref name=Birth-hume>{{cite web |last=National Records of Scotland |title=1905 Piffard, Hume (Statutory registers Births 312/ 160) |website=ScotlandsPeople |date=8 August 1905 |url=https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/view-image/nrs_stat_births/45279250?return_row=0 |accessdate=10 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200411024009/https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/view-image/nrs_stat_births/45279250%3Freturn_row%3D0 |archive-date=11 April 2020 |url-status=live }}</ref> Piffard died on 17 January 1939.<ref name="Times Obit">{{cite news |title=Deaths |work=The Times |quotation=Piffard.-On 17 January 1939, Harold Hume Piffard, of 18, Addison Road, Bedford Park, W.4. |date=18 January 1939 |issue= 48206 |page=1}}</ref>

== Artist ==

=== Painter ===

Piffard painted a wide variety of subjects in both oils and watercolour.<ref name="Bear-Piffard" /> He made his reputation by exhibiting large history paintings at the Royal Academy, on four occasions between 1895 and 1899. The best-known of these was ''Saragossa 10 February 1809''.<ref name="Allingham" /> The scholar of literature Philip V. Allingham describes this as "dramatically (one might even say, sensationally) depict[ing] Napoleon's forces brutally putting down the resistance of Spanish patriots inside the cathedral of Zaragoza during the Peninsular War".<ref name="Allingham" />

<gallery class="center" mode="nolines" heights="175"> File:Harold H. Piffard 028 (27735154369).jpg|Classical scene File:Harold piffard joan of arc.jpg|''Joan of Arc'' File:Harold H. Piffard 031 (38615646175).jpg|''Snowballing'' File:Harold H. Piffard - Bather.jpg|''Bather'' File:Harold Piffard - Odalisque.jpg|''Odalisque'' File:Harold H. Piffard 015 (27735175849).jpg|Napoleon history painting File:Sarogassa 10 february 1809 assault by the french by harold piffard.jpg|French assault on Saragossa, 10 February 1809 </gallery>

<gallery class="center" mode="nolines" widths="200px" heights="175px"> File:Harold H. Piffard 040 (39511596041).jpg|Still life File:Harold H. Piffard 042 (39511606461).jpg|Courtship history painting File:Harold H. Piffard 022 (38615650715).jpg|Jacobean bathtime scene File:Harold H. Piffard 032 (39481120402).jpg|''The Signing of the Armistice, Nov. 11th, 1918''<ref>{{cite web |last=Gregson |first=Marjorie |title=The Signing of the Armistice (after) Harold Hume Piffard |url=https://www.lythamstannesartcollection.org/the-signing-of-the-armistice-after-harold-hume-piffard.html |publisher=Lytham St Anne's Art Collection |accessdate=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109212817/https://www.lythamstannesartcollection.org/the-signing-of-the-armistice-after-harold-hume-piffard.html |archive-date=9 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> </gallery>

=== Illustrator ===

Piffard started his work as an illustrator in 1894 with contributions to periodicals including ''The Strand Magazine'', ''The Illustrated London News'' and ''The Penny Pictorial Magazine''.<ref name="Allingham" /><ref name=Bear-Piffard>{{cite web |last=Kirkpatrick |first=Robert J. |title=Harold Piffard |website=Bear Alley |date=8 October 2018 |url=https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2018/09/harold-piffard.html |accessdate=10 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109192442/https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2018/09/harold-piffard.html |archive-date=9 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> He began to illustrate books in 1895, eventually illustrating over a hundred novels, many of them for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,<ref name="Allingham" /> by authors including Frances Hodgson Burnett,<ref>{{cite web |title=Harold Piffard |url=https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/harold-piffard?family=editorial&phrase=harold%20piffard&sort=mostpopular# |publisher=Getty Images |accessdate=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109210254/https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/harold-piffard?family=editorial&phrase=harold%2520piffard&sort=mostpopular |archive-date=9 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> Guy Boothby, Harry Collingwood, Mrs. Henry Wood, Richard Marsh, Max Pemberton, and J. M. Neale. From 1908 he illustrated a series of classics for Collins including works by Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot.<ref name="Allingham" /><ref name="Bear-Piffard" />

<gallery mode="packed" heights="175px"> File:Valdar the Oft-born by George Griffith cover illus Harold H. Piffard 1895.jpg|Cover of George Griffith's ''Valdar the Oft-born'', 1895, signed lower left File:Zoraida (William le Queux) cover by Harold Piffard.jpg|Cover of William le Queux's ''Zoraida'', 1895, signed lower left File:Nailmaking shed in Bromsgrove.jpg|Interior of a Bromsgrove Nailmaker's shed, 1896 File:304 of 'Sibyl Falcon. A study in romantic morals ... Illustrated by H. Piffard' (11232298876).jpg|"The Silent Groves", plate on page 279 of ''Sibyl Falcon. A study in romantic morals'' by Alfred Edgar Jepson, 1895 File:96 of 'The City of Gold. A tale of sport, ... travel, and adventure in the heart of the Dark Continent. With illustrations by H. Piffard' (11299026234).jpg|"There in the blackness of the night I saw two gleaming eyes", plate on page 77 of ''The City of Gold'' by Edward Markwick, 1896 </gallery>

=== Example of a full set of illustrations === The following set of six illustrations were made by Piffard for ''Geoffrey Harrington's Adventures'' by Harry Collingwood. This was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1907.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="175"> File:I clung for dear life to the shattered stump.jpg|Geoffrey Harrington holds onto the stump of the mast while attempting to cut free the broken mast and rigging File:The shadow paused and i could see that its owner was immediately outside the doorway.jpg|Geoffrey Harrington foils an assassination attempt File:You will become my wife.jpg|Geoffrey Harrington and the Queen plight their troth to each other File:Destruction of the tutans dockyard.jpg|The Avelians set the Tutan Dockyard on fire File:Ilia my royal sweetheart was bending over me.jpg|Geoffrey Harrington is succoured by his Royal Sweetheart File:I found him reclining on a couch.jpg|The deposed Tutan King listens to music </gallery>

== Aviator ==

=== First flights in Ealing ===

Piffard began making model aircraft in 1907, winning a prize for one of them at Olympia in 1909. He began to fly in 1909, using an 8-cylinder 40 horsepower ENV 'D' engine and building the airframe in his studio; he rented a shed on Back Common Road, Turnham Green, near his home to assemble the aircraft, which was a biplane with an elevator in front of the wing, and a variable-pitch propeller.<ref name="Manton 2006" /> From September 1909 he tested the aircraft on a rented field in Ealing to the west of Masons Lane at what was then Hangar Hill Farm (not the same as the later Acton Aerodrome, which was on the other side of Masons Lane).<ref name="Manton 2006" /><ref>Map and discussion of probable site: {{cite web |title=NORTH EALING: Private flying field |url=http://www.ukairfieldguide.net/airfields/North-Ealing |publisher=UK Airfield Guide |accessdate=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109123019/http://www.ukairfieldguide.net/airfields/North-Ealing |archive-date=9 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> He managed to get the plane airborne and fly "a foot or two from the ground for a distance of a hundred yards or so."<ref name="Manton 2006" /> However, on 3 December 1909 the aircraft and its marquee hangar were destroyed in a storm.<ref name="Manton 2006" />

=== Flying at Shoreham ===

[[File:Harold Piffard's Hummingbird Biplane at Shoreham 1910.jpg|thumb|upright=1.75|Piffard in his hand-built aircraft ''Hummingbird'' on the Shoreham field where he flew it, 1910<ref name="Manton 2006" />]]

Piffard then co-founded (with George Wingfield, a lawyer) the Aviator's Finance Company, which took out a lease on land at Shoreham-by-Sea near his old school, Lancing College, which already possessed a hangar. With Edouard Baumann and two assistants, they reworked the aircraft's design and had ''Hummingbird'' ready on 3 May 1910. It was able to take off in short hops, earning it the nickname of "The Grasshopper"; it frequently crashed because of the hidden ditches in the grass. In September 1910 he flew at a height of 30 or 40 feet for half a mile, managing to fly right across the field to a nearby hotel, The Sussex Pad, "in about 40 seconds". He had not learnt how to turn the plane in the air, and the plane had to be wheeled back to the hangar, as there was no space to take off near the hotel, but he celebrated with champagne all the same.<ref name="Manton 2006" /><ref>{{cite web |title=The Clarion : Armistice Centenary Edition |url=http://www.smaaa.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Clarion-Armistice-Centenary-Edition-1918-2018.pdf |publisher=St Michael's and All Angels, Bedford Park |page=10 |date=2018 |access-date=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109103158/http://www.smaaa.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Clarion-Armistice-Centenary-Edition-1918-2018.pdf |archive-date=9 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Gage |first1=Bill (asst. county archivist) |title=Pioneer aviators helped develop Shoreham airfield |url=https://www.shorehamherald.co.uk/lifestyle/pioneer-aviators-helped-develop-shoreham-airfield-1-6690835 |date=17 April 2015 |access-date=13 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109204850/https://www.shorehamherald.co.uk/lifestyle/pioneer-aviators-helped-develop-shoreham-airfield-1-6690835 |archive-date=9 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Ramus 2021">{{cite web |last1=Ramus |first1=Andy |title=A Brief History of Aviation at Shoreham – Part 1: Harold Hume Piffard |url=https://www.shorehambysea.com/a-brief-history-of-aviation-at-shoreham-part-1-2/ |website=Shorehambysea.com |access-date=24 January 2023 |date=2021}}</ref>

A local cinematograph company asked to film a flight, and he confidently accepted; Colin Manton describes this as characteristic hubris.<ref name="Manton 2006" /> Ignoring warnings of a dangerous ditch, he tried to fly over it, destroying the aircraft in a "comprehensive smash" which was recorded on film.<ref name="Manton 2006" /> The cameraman recalled that Piffard still "seemed in no way disappointed; in fact, I thought I saw a gleam of satisfaction in his eye".<ref name="Manton 2006" />

In 1911 Piffard unsuccessfully tested a new aircraft, the ''Piffard Hydroplane'', which had floats as well as wheels, on Shoreham beach. He developed no more aircraft and did not attempt to fly again, working as an artist and illustrator. The land at Shoreham became Shoreham Airport.<ref name="Manton 2006" /> In 2007 the Shoreham Airport Historical Association built a replica of Piffard's ''Hummingbird''.<ref name="Argus 2007">{{cite news |title=Flying Machine |url=https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/1826970.flying-machine/ |work=The Argus |date=12 November 2007 |access-date=13 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191110121722/https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/1826970.flying-machine/ |archive-date=10 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Notes == {{Reflist|group=note}}

== References ==

== External links ==

; Artworks * [http://www.artnet.com/artists/harold-h-piffard/ At Artnet] (79 artworks) * [http://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Harold-H--Piffard/5A25C57B3744F8A1 At MutualArt] (29 artworks) * [https://www.artrenewal.org/artists/harold-piffard/354 Art Renewal Center] (4 artworks) * [https://artuk.org/discover/artists/piffard-harold-hume-18671939 Art UK] (2 artworks)

; Books illustrated *{{Gutenberg author|id=9844}} * [https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Piffard%2C%20Harold Online Books] listed at University of Pennsylvania library (22 books) * [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?131294 Online Books] list at Internet Speculative Fiction Database (15 books) *[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=%22Harold%20Piffard%22&searchtype=all&ft=ft&setft=true Books illustrated by Harold Piffard] at the HathiTrust *[https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/search?q=author:%20Piffard,%20Harold. Books illustrated by Piffard] in the Jisc Library Hub Discover database (which draws together 160 UK and Irish academic, national & specialist library catalogues. *[https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22Harold%20Piffard%22 Books by Piffard] at the Internet Archive *[http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?ct=facet&fctN=facet_creator&fctV=Piffard%2c+Harold.&rfnGrp=2&rfnGrpCounter=2&indx=1&fn=search&dscnt=0&vl(2084770704UI0)=any&mode=Basic&vid=BLVU1&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1586554373820&frbg=&rfnGrpCounter=1&scp.scps=scope%3A(BLCONTENT)&tb=t&ct=facet&srt=rank&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=Harold%20piffard Books by Piffard] listed in the catalogue of the British Library, including two online texts. *[https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2018/09/harold-piffard.html The Bear Alley blow on Piffard] by Robert J. Kirkpatrick, includes a list of 174 books illustrated by Piffard.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piffard, Harold}} Category:1867 births Category:1939 deaths Category:19th-century British artists Category:20th-century British artists Category:British children's book illustrators Category:People educated at Lancing College Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools Category:British aviators Category:People from Chiswick