Charles Stewart Rolls - Pioneer Aviator - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

Sited along Marine Parade on Dover's seafront. looking across the harbour is the life size statue of Charles Stewart Rolls, wearing the the flying helmet and gaiters of the early days of flying, the co-founder of Rolls Royce motor cars. The statue commemorates his non-stop flight across the English Channel and back (in one flight) on 2nd June 1910. It was a considerable achievement, considering the first ever flight (one way) across the English Channel had been achieved only a year previously by Frenchman Louis Bleriot, and Roll's flight both ways was quicker than Bleriot's one way flight

Charles Rolls was a a founding member of the Royal Aero Club back in 1903, and was only the second person in Britain to receive a pilots licence to fly an aeroplane. His co-founder of the Rolls Royce motor car company, Sir Henry Royce, was unimpressed with Roll's aero feats and in 1907 turned down a request to design a new aero engine. In 1909, having resigned as Technical Managing Director of the Rolls Royce Limited, Charles Rolls purchased one of the six 'Wright Flyers' built by Short Brothers under licence from the Wright Brothers in the USA.  Unfortunately Charles Rolls was to perish shortly after his record breaking Channel Flight, when on 12th July 1910 he was killed when the tail section broke away on his Wright aeroplane during an air display at Hengistbury Airfield in Bournemouth. His death, at the age of 32, became another first in aviation, being the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident with a powered aircraft.

A bronze plaque on the plinth reads:

Charles * Stewart * Rolls

The First Man To Cross The Channel And Return In A Single Flight June 2 1910