The remarkable story of a Bangor University’s contribution to the development of aircraft flight

A public lecture at Bangor University today (Wednesday 2 November) at 6.30 in the Main Arts Lecture Theatre reveals the remarkable story of Bangor University’s contribution to the development of aircraft flight.

Professor T. J.M.  Boyd will reveal all in a lecture:  “George Hartley Bryan : Prophet without Honour”.

The story revolves around George Hartley Bryan, who was Professor of Pure & Applied Mathematics at Bangor for 30 years from 1896, was one of the most extraordinary academics ever to have served the University. A brilliant mathematician, he was also a man with a near-messianic belief that flying would only be safe once aeroplanes were designed to be stable.

A century ago, in 1911, he published Stability in Aviation, a book that not only established Bangor at the forefront of new scientific advances, but whose conclusions hold good for the aeroplanes of 2011. Essentially Bryan applied the principles of mathematics to the question of aircraft stability. His publication was the result of a series of experiments in Bangor and the surrounding area, working with W.E. Williams, a young local man who graduated in physics and mathematics from Bangor, on the stability of gliders. The 1911 book led to the award of the second gold medal ever awarded by the Royal Aeronautical Society – the first having gone to the Wright brothers.

The work of G.H. Bryan has been extensively researched by Professor T.J.M. Boyd, who was Professor of Mathematics at Bangor from 1968 until 1990, when he became Professor of Physics at the University of Essex. To mark the centenary of Bryan’s great work, Professor Boyd delivers the Ballard Mathews Lecture, “George Hartley Bryan: Prophet Without Honour”.

“Bryan was a contrarian”, says Professor Boyd, “a man whose earlier work had won plaudits from Einstein but who, at the same time, was the butt of countless student pranks and a thorn in the flesh of Sir Harry Reichel, the Principal who had come to rue ever appointing him.”

Professor Boyd will present his own version of events in the story of aviation at Bangor, and will enter a plea that Bryan be as esteemed at Bangor as he is abroad – where he sits high in the pantheon of pioneers of flight.

Publication date: 28 October 2011