VETERAN AIRWOMAN STILL MISSING

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 159, 2 April 1937, Page 11

VETERAN AIRWOMAN STILL MISSING

Memorial Service Arranged

(British Official Wifeless.) Rugby, March 31. The search for the Duchess of Bedford’s missing aeroplane continued without success yesterday, and is still proceeding. A memorial service for the Duchess is to be held in .the parish Church of Woburn. Mary du Caurroy, Duchess of Bedford, scientist and airwoman, was born nt Stockbridge, Hampshire, m September, 1865 and educated at Cheltenham College and Zurich. Her father, the Rev. W. 11. Tribe, went out to India and m JW was made Archdeacon of Lahore. She was in India from 1882 until January-, 1888 when she married Lord Herbrand Russell, then A.D.C. to Lord Dufferm, the Viceroy. She had already become deeply interested in science, especially natural history, and on her return to England she took every opportunity of pursuing her studies. When, in 1593, on the death of his brother, Russell became eleventh Duke of Bedford, he succeeded not only to. .some .of the most valuable estates in London but also the family seat of Woburn Abbey, with its magnificent art. treasures and fine park. The duke also was a student of natural history, and between them they built up an excellent zoological collection in the park. The breadth of the duchess’s interest in science is shown by the fact that she became a fellow of the Linnean Society, whose studies are botany and zoology and a member of the Ornithologists’ Union the Rontgen Society, the Society of Radiographers, and the Royal Red Cross. ..... The duehe/w qualified as an air pilot in 1927, when she was' 62 years of age. Within a month or two she flew to Baris, Madrid, Tangier and back. In January, 1928, she started on a flight to India witn Captain C. D. Barnard, but misfortune befell the machine in the Persian Gulf region, and the trip was abandoned. In the following Augus.t the duchess, accompanied by Captain Barnard and an engineer, Mr. Robert Little, flew to India and back in seven days and a half. Then in 1930 the duchess, with the same companions, flew t 0 Cape Town and back in 21 days. Elight Lieutenant J. B. Allen afterward became the duchess’s chief pilot. In December, 1933, they were planning a flight to Egypt when Lieutenant Allen was killed in a crash while piloting her new machine to Woburn Abbey.