On Thursday, 30 July 2026 Sir George White unveiled a blue plaque at the Downs café, Stoke Road, on Durdham Down near the water tower. It commemorates a test flight made by a young pilot, Leslie Macdonald in a Bristol Boxkite aircraft.
We welcomed a small but distinguished audience, including an impressive array of VIPs: the Deputy Lord Mayor of Bristol, Councillor Henry Michallat; senior executives from aerospace companies Airbus, GKN and Rolls-Royce, and Old Cathedralians, who provided a link with Leslie’s school.
Greg Edwards from Sydney, a historian of Australia’s early days of flight underlined the important contribution Leslie Macdonald made to Australian aviation history. He became Australia’s first flight instructor and possibly the youngest. The general public would have called these strange aircraft biplanes, monoplanes or aeroplanes; no − they would simply have looked up and seen flying machines!
Loraine McIlree, Head of Strategy at Airbus and Aegis Professor of Aerospace Strategy at the University of Bristol was delighted to be involved with the unveiling. She regarded it as a valuable opportunity to reflect on one of the courageous pioneers who laid the foundations for the aerospace hub that now exists at Filton.
Sir Iain Gray CBE, Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Aerospace Bristol museum, spoke about Sir George White’s business vision. It led to the creation of the British and Colonial Airplane Company in 1910 and the manufacture of the Bristol Boxkite at Filton. The Boxkite demonstrated not only aircraft design expertise but the resilience and business skills which made Bristol the largest aeroplane manufacturer in the UK and sowed the seeds for what has evolved today in Bristol − the largest aerospace advanced engineering cluster in the UK.
Sir George White, the great-grandson of one of our city’s most distinguished entrepreneurs told us that his ancestor wanted the Boxkite tested on the day before a planned major display. Having the young mechanic test-fly the aircraft would generate valuable publicity.
Thanks to Melanie and Nigel Hancock for organising the event area and providing refreshments.
