aeroplanes would not add to the popularity of a
motor-racing track, and his experiments had been made under very
difficult conditions, for he was not allowed to sleep in the shed where
his machine was housed, nor to practise with the machine during the
hours when the track was in use. He applied to the War Office for leave
to erect his shed by the side of Mr. Cody's at Laffan's Plain, but was
refused. He then consulted a map of London, and pitched upon Lea
Marshes, where there were some large fields open to the public, and some
railway arches, a couple of which he rented and boarded up. In the
stable of a house at Putney belonging to one of his brothers he had
already built a tractor triplane which he now removed to Lea Marshes.
Under the stress of his misfortunes he had parted with his Antoinette
engine, so he had nothing better for his triplane than a nine
horse-power J.A.P. motor-cycle engine designed by John Alfred Prestwich.
With this, the lowest-powered engine that has ever flown in England, he
made, in June 1909, the first successful flight on an all-British
aeroplane. Thereafter he made many flights; the earliest of these were
short and low, earning him the name of 'Roe the Hopper', but before long
he was making flights of three hundred yards in length at a height of
from six to ten feet. One day in the summer of 1909 a young woman who
had come down to commit suicide in the river Lea saw his machine
skimming about and went home; then she wrote to Mr. Roe urging him to
let her take his place as pilot and so save his life at the expense of
hers. Mr. Roe very tactfully replied that he would gladly let her fly
the machine when he had perfected it, thus offering her something to
look forward to. But his chief troubles were with the local authorities,
who employed a bailiff to watch him and prevent his flying. At
Brooklands Mr. Roe had become accustomed to early rising, and it was
some time before the bailiff caught him in the act of preparing to fly,
but he was caught at last, and police-court proceedings were instituted.
Just at that time Bleriot flew the Channel, and the case was dropped, so
that the authorities were not called upon to decide whether flying is
legal or illegal. As for Mr. Roe, he moved on to Wembley Park, where he
flew with steadily increasing success. In 1910 he made an aviation
partnership with his brother, who had prospered as a manufacturer of
webbing in Manchester. In the same year he had his re