Pioneer and inventor, John STRINGFELLOW (1799 – 1883) worked in Chard as a maker of bobbins for the lace industry. Stringfellow aspired to the then impossible and in 1848 he achieved the first powered flight using an unmanned 10ft wingspan steam-powered monoplane built in a disused lace factory in Chard. Ultimately his machine succeeded in flying some thirty meters of straight and level powered flight. Stringfellow was also a keen photographer and was a pioneer of some of the first photographic printing techniques.
