Blogs of Note

Sunday 19 June 2016

Burial place of John Alcock, the First non-stop Transatlantic flier

Captain Sir John William Alcock [1892 – 1919] was a captain in both the Royal Navy and Royal Air Forc. With navigator Lt Arthur Whitten Brown, he piloted the first non-stop transatlantic flight from St John's, Newfoundland to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland. He died in a flying accident in France in 1919.


On December 18, 1919, Alcock was piloting a new Vickers amphibious aircraft, the Vickers Viking, to the first post-war aeronautical exhibition in Paris when he crashed in fog near Rouen in Normany. Alcock suffered a fractured skull and never regained consciousness after being transferred to a hospital in Rouen.
He is buried in Manchester's Southern Cemetery. His grave is marked by a large stone memorial which includes a representation of an aircraft propellor.