MR BILLING'S CAREER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3250, 28 June 1916, Page 63

MR BILLING'S CAREER.

EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF ADVENTURE.

Mr Pemberton Billing, M.P.,has had an amazing career; he has tried his hand at many things; he has been everything by turns, but nothing long. The Daily Chronicle has been dipping into the past, and the following is the result: Mr Billing has been a seaman, a bricklayer, a labourer, an actor, a stonebreaker, a soldier, a mounted policeman, a theatre manager, a chauffeur, a stoker, a journalist, an editor, a yacht dealer, a social reformer, a tram conductor, an aviator, an aircraft builder.

Mr Billing is quite young. He was born in Hampstead in 1881. His father, Charles Eardley Billing, was a stone manufacturer. Hampstead soon proved too slow for Mr Billing. He started life on his own account when he was 14 by setting out for the conquest of South Africa. He has recently given an account of this thrilling chapter of his life in an interview which appeared in South Africa of April 1. Ran Away to Sea. — "When I was 14 years old," he says, "I ran away to sea in a windjammer. They tried to haze me, but I fought the mate and one of the crew, and the difference between the skipper and myself was left undecided, when I got a compound fracture of the leg. which laid me up for six weeks in a bunk, with oil-sheet splints to help the bone-setting. I was landed at Delagoa Bay, wearing a smile and a lump over the broken jointing. I limped about on crutches through the sandsmothered streets for a few days until I threw away the sticks, to stow myself away on a steamer. "I worked as a cabinetmaker's assistant. 1 did odd jobs in any' craftsman's yard, I bustled and planned continuously. I've been conductor and driver oti those old horsed tramcars in Durban. I've stoked and driven old Hunter's 'Mallet' engines. I've battled around old 'Tekwini at every tort of job that a man might, do. But the horizon above the Berea beckoned and beckoned till I foot-slogged myself over its crest as far as Pinetown, whence I broke away through Stanger and Erulani to Rorke's Drift. From the Drift I came round in a wide circle to Maritzburg, hoboing my way back to Durban." What the Zulus Called Him.— He worked ns a bricklayer, and took up any job that came to his hand: ''l've battled in Natal, barefooted sometimes, and I've broken stones for the new prison at 'Ndumbeni (Undeen). I've tramped around on Kaffir track's, and once I was lost for a couple of days in the bush, of the Upper Tugela., When at length I found a kraal, the Zulus gave me condensed milk on yellow porridge—impupu, —and I wish that I could rub sorno Whitehall noses in it." The natives gave Mr Billing a new name. He says: " You know the Zulu habit of giving special names to every while? Well, my name was 'Tsumatish, which means 'the little hawk which is always hunting trouble.' I got it through fighting and outing a big buck nigger. I used to be in the boxing ring in Maritzburg." He joined the Natal Mounted Police, and was in the force when the war broke out. Ho was on " Penn-Symor.s's staff as galloper and despatch rider." Ho

" helped to load Yule's brigade to Ladysmith." He was one of Boiler's " despatch riders and gallopers," and he was "in the dunga when young Roberts was wounded." —ln Despatches at 18.— Finally he "saw hot work at Spion Kop. I -was sent after a ie\r squadrons of tho 8.M.1., who had to bo brought back from some M.I. enterprise. T was mentioned three times in despatches before the relief of Ladysmith, and my greatest pride is connected with the occasion when six of. us were sent out separately with a message at midnight from Buller to the 0.0. troops holding the ridge beyond Pieters Hill the night after tne battle. I was the only one of those six to reach his objective." The member for "air" was then only 18. Mr Billing told an audience at East Herts that " he fought for 18 months in the Boer war, and was wounded twice." After the war he edited several newspapers in South Africa. One was devoted to motoring. He " holds the first certificate issued in South Africa to a driver (if a public motor car. He introduced the taxi to Natal." Having mastered journalism and motoring in South Africa, he then conquered the stage, and " toured all over South Africa" with several companies. Romantic Career in England.— Mr Billing returned from South Africa in 1903, and began a new romantic career in England. He lived near East Grinstead for a time, and " was the first man to fly a man-carrying kite." He married the daughter of Mr T. Schweitzer, a retired ship chandler. Mr Billing has always been attracted by journalism, and in April. 1905, he was associated with a paper called the Hampstead Social Review, published in Finchley road. It ran for a few months. Next year he broke out in two new directions. He acted for a short time as manager for the Richmond Hippodrome, and ran a shooting gallery under Messrs Elkington's shop in Regent street. Another enterprise of his was connected with land speculations at Fambridge and Shoreham. He w r as also in the yacht line at Burn* ham-on-Crouch. These are not by any means all of his activities, and we have not yet reached the air. We are getting near it. In 1909 he started a paper called Aerocraft, and began telling the country how to run an a'rr service; but Unfortunately the paper did not last long enough, or was well enough known to impress anyone.

It was not until November, 1913, that he obtained pilot's certificate. Mr Billing's greatest enterprise was the flotation of himself as a private company — Pemberton Billing (Ltd.) —on June 27, 1914. The objects of the company were to acquire the business of manufacturing seaplanes and other aircraft, carried on by Billing at Southampton, with all his real and personal property and assets.