THE AMAZING STORY OF THE FIRST FEMALE PARACHUTIST….
Researched by Claire and David Ivison, local historians
The first ever woman to use a parachute dived 1000 feet from a tethered balloon in Richmond Park in 1919, it has emerged. Her name was Sylva Boyden, aged 19 at the time and described by the newspaper The Daily Chronicle as ‘the first of her sex to hazard the experience.’
She said the jump was not pre-arranged and that she was only in the park to watch some tests when she was offered the opportunity to jump. Her historical feat was immortalised by the Park Brewery, which opened on the fringe of Richmond Park and named one of its IPA beers Sylva after her and donated part of the proceeds to the Kingston Women’s Centre.
According to one report in order to get permission she lied about her age, claiming a mature 21, and gave her grandmother’s name to avoid recognition and she became known as the ‘Famous English Airgirl.’
Following the end of hostilities in November 1918, Richmond Park remained a busy place with a hospital, army camp, Royal Air Force (RAF) depots and continuing crop production. At the end of 1918 and beginning of 1919 the RAF’s No 2 Balloon Training Depot, situated near the Experimental Grounds in the park, was being used to carry out tests on various types of parachute.
Supervising these tests was Major Thomas Orde Lees RAF, secretary to the Parachute Committee, a group set up in June 1918 tasked with organising trials on various designs and reporting on their effectiveness.
In 1917, a year after his return, the now Major Orde Lees joined the Balloon Corps of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and it was from here that he began to show an interest in the use of parachutes to save the lives of airmen.
On 4 September 1916 trials were carried out to test three types of parachute (Spencer, Guardian Angel and French Air Service) at the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) station at Roehampton.
However, the experiments were not sufficiently complete to be satisfactory and it was recommended that a further series of experiments should take place in Richmond Park where there was more open ground.
These trials took place on 6 and 26 September, presumably at the newly-erected balloon depot situated by the Beverley Brook and the Experimental Grounds.
Major Orde Lees became a champion for parachutes in general and the Guardian Angel type in particular. On 7 March 1919 Parachute Progress Report No 17 was issued for the Parachute Committee by Major Orde Lees.
In it he reported on a series of tests sanctioned by the Air Council on the feasibility of steering parachutes. On 28 February seven drops had been made from a tethered balloon in Richmond Park by two experimenters; three by a Mears parachute and four by Calthrop’s Guardian Angel parachute.
What was not included in the report, but was widely publicised in the next day’s newspapers, was that one jump was by the first woman to dive 1,000 feet from a balloon using a closed or folded parachute. Her name, given in ‘The Daily Chronicle’ was Sylva Boyden, aged 19, “the first of her sex to hazard the experience”. Her feat was subsequently reported around the world.
But why was Miss Boyden at Richmond Park on that day?
She said that the descent was not pre-arranged, but that she went to watch some tests and the chance was offered the chance to make a jump. There is, however, more to the story than is reported in the newspapers.
In ‘The Silken Canopy’, John Lucas states that Major Orde Lees met Sylva at an aero-engineering course at Chatham, introduced her to parachuting and taught her to jump. This was possibly correct as Sylva stated she was a student at the Calthrop works and could possibly have been sent to RNAS Kingsnorth, a training school for airship captains and technical staff.
At that time, she would have been about 18 years old. On 6 December 1918 Everard Calthrop wrote a letter replying to Major Orde Lees on his suggestion that his “girlfriend” desired to make a parachute drop in one of Calthrop’s parachutes; a request that Calthrop called “most interesting”.
He saw no good reason why she should not do it and be the first lady passenger to make a descent with his parachute.
It appears from correspondence at the time with Calthrop that Major Orde Lees employed Miss Boyden as his assistant on secondment from Calthrop. In early February 1919 Miss Boyden was off work with an illness and Calthrop agreed that Major Orde Lees could “keep Miss Boyden for the other four days that you require her to complete your work”.
It seems likely that Miss Boyden travelled with Major Orde Lees to various trial events and this led to her being at Richmond Park on 28 February. How she managed to persuade the authorities to let her be taken up in a balloon basket, whether as one of the “two experimenters” mentioned in the trial report or on an unofficial drop, may never be known.
Calthrop’s agreement to such a drop by a woman using his equipment and the apparent friendly relationship with Major Orde Lees, who oversaw the trials, certainly would have been major factors.
Parachute Progress Report No 18 to the Parachute Committee gave the results of trials in Richmond Park carried out on 26 March 1919 in the presence of American, Canadian and Japanese officers. Miss Boyden again used the opportunity to carry out three more parachute drops with the Guardian Angel parachute, and again the event was publicised all over the world.
They called Miss Boyden “a cheerful little woman, who was dressed in a flying kit with a fur lined helmet, made three descents during the day ‘for the love of the experience.”
Shortly after this, on 7 April 1919, Major Orde Lees left the Parachute Committee and returned to Corps duties. On 25 April he resigned his commission, reportedly before he was court marshalled over his involvement with a sponsored women’s parachute course.
Miss Boyden and Orde Lees continued to work together in civilian life promoting the Guardian Angel parachute. Between 18 and 21 April Miss Boyden demonstrated the parachute on flights organised by Handley Page, an aircraft manufacturer, whilst giving rides to the public in one of their bombers that was reconfigured to civilian use.
By 12 May Miss Boyden had made six jumps from the aeroplane; on that day she and Orde Lees were on a flight, sponsored by ‘The Daily Mail’, to deliver newspapers by parachute to cities on a route from London to Aberdeen.
However, due to bad weather, they were involved in a crash near Carlisle. Following this they both travelled to America to demonstrate the Guardian Angel parachute. On their return they continued to travel around Britain and Europe jumping from aeroplanes at air shows.
Miss Boyden carried on jumping with Handley Page and on 3 July 1920 was the first women to parachute at an RAF pageant. In all she made around 150 jumps in her career, but who was she?
Sylva in mid-air Richmond Park 26 March
1919. Image courtesy of Alanna Pritchard
An interview in ‘Sports Parachute’ in 1966 stated that in 1965 Miss Boyden had become Mrs Marley, was 65 years old and lived in Southampton. She said she had used her grandmother’s name in 1919 as “she did not want her parents to know at that point of her unlady-like pastime.”
Mrs Marley told ‘Sports Parachute’ that “A friend of her family invited her to the Park to watch members of the Royal Flying Corps testing a new parachute” and that “straight away she asked if she could have a go.”