---
title: "George Cayley"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cayley"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:06:03.078841+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The model glider successfully flown by Cayley in 1804 had the layout of a modern aircraft, with a kite-shaped wing towards the front and an adjustable  tailplane at the back consisting of horizontal stabilisers and a vertical fin.  A movable weight allowed adjustment of the model's centre of gravity.  In 1843 he was the first to suggest the idea of a convertiplane.  At some time before 1849 he designed and built a biplane in which an unknown ten-year-old boy flew. Later, with the continued assistance of his grandson George John Cayley and his resident engineer Thomas Vick, he developed a larger scale glider (also probably fitted with "flappers") which flew across Brompton Dale in front of Wydale Hall in 1853. The first adult aviator has been claimed to be either Cayley's coachman, footman or butler. One source (Gibbs-Smith) has suggested that it was John Appleby, a Cayley employee; however, there is no definitive evidence to fully identify the pilot. An entry in volume IX of the 8th Encyclopædia Britannica of 1855 is the most contemporaneous authoritative account regarding the event. A 2007 biography of Cayley (Richard Dee's The Man Who Discovered Flight: George Cayley and the First Airplane) claims the first pilot was Cayley's grandson George John Cayley (1826–1878).
A replica of the 1853 machine was flown at the original site in Brompton Dale by Derek Piggott in 1973 for TV and in the mid-1980s for the IMAX film On the Wing. The glider is currently on display at the Yorkshire Air Museum. 
A second replica of the Cayley Glider was built in 2003 by a team from BAE Systems to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the original flight. Built using modern materials and techniques, the craft was test flown by Alan McWhirter at RAF Pocklington, before being flown by Sir Richard Branson on 5 July 2003 at Brompton Dale, the site of the original glider’s flight. Virgin Atlantic sponsored construction of the replica glider. In 2005, the replica glider was transported and rebuilt in Salina, Kansas, as part of the ground show for the return of the  'round-the-world' Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer flight, with the glider being towed by a vehicle along the runway in front of the gathered crowds. Returning to the UK, the replica glider was flown once more for a segment on The One Show. Again towed by a vehicle, the glider undertook its longest and highest flights during the filming and was flown by Dave Holborn. Placed into storage at BAE System's Farnborough site, it was donated to the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in 2021 and is now on display.

== Memorial ==

Cayley died in 1857 and was buried in the graveyard of All Saints' Church in Brompton-by-Sawdon.
He is commemorated in Scarborough at the University of Hull, Scarborough Campus, where a hall of residence and a teaching building are named after him. He is one of many scientists and engineers commemorated by having a hall of residence and a bar at Loughborough University named after him. The University of Westminster also honours Cayley's contribution to the formation of the institution with a gold plaque at the entrance of the Regent Street building.

There are display boards and a video film at the Royal Air Force Museum London in Hendon honouring Cayley's achievements and a modern exhibition and film "Pioneers of Aviation" at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, York. 
The Sir George Cayley Sailwing Club is a North Yorkshire-based free flight club, affiliated to the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, which has borne his name since its founding in 1975.
In 1974, Cayley was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.

== Family ==
On 3 July 1795 Cayley married Sarah Walker, daughter of his first tutor George Walker. (J W Clay's expanded edition of Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire incorrectly gives the date as 9 July 1795, as does George Cayley's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.) They had ten children, of whom three died young. Sarah died on 8 December 1854.

== See also ==
Early flying machines
Matthew Piers Watt Boulton
William Samuel Henson
Timeline of aviation – 18th century
Timeline of aviation – 19th century
Kite types

== Notes ==

== References ==
Gibbs-Smith, Charles H. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 17, No. 1 (May 1962), pp. 36–56
Gibbs-Smith, C.H. Aviation. London, NMSO, 2002
Gerard Fairlie and Elizabeth Cayley, The Life of a Genius, Hodder and Stoughton, 1965.

== External links ==

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir George Cayley
Cayley's principles of flight, models and gliders
Cayley's gliders
Some pioneers of air engine design
Sir George Cayley – Making Aviation Practical
Sir George Cayley
"Sir George Cayley – The Man: His Work" a 1954 Flight article
"Aerodynamics in 1804" a 1954 Flight art
"Cayley's 1853 Aeroplane" a 1973 Flight article
Ackroyd, J.A.D. "Sir George Cayley, the father of Aeronautics". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 56 (2002) Part 1 (2), pp167–181, Part 2 (3), pp333–348
Cayley's Flying Machines