Agence Meurisse Photography

An original silver gelatin black and white photograph by Agence Meurisse Photographer. Car race in Boulogne sur Mer, France, circa 1911. The French pilot Rene Thomas is speeding in ...

An original silver gelatin black and white photograph by Agence Meurisse Photographer. Car race in Boulogne sur Mer, France, circa 1911. Features: Original Silver Gelatin Print Phot...

An original silver gelatin black and white photograph by Agence Meurisse Photographer. Car race in Boulogne sur Mer, France, 25th June 1911. This is a rare photography...

A unique original silver gelatin black and white photography by Agence Meurisse, Paris. The construction of the Airship R101, circa 1929. Features: Original silver gelatin print photography unframed. Press photograph. Press agency: Meurisse, Paris. Photographer: Anonymous. Title: The construction of the airship R101, circa 1929. Provenance: Private collection. Image Size: 6.06 in. high (15.4 cm) x 4.61 in. wide (11.7 cm) - Archivally matted in a 17 in. x 13 in. mat. Caption and credit are typed at the back. "Le nouveau dirigeable anglais R101 qui vient d'etre terminé et dont les essais auront lieu prochainement. Ce rigide est plus important que le Zeppelin, puisqu'il jauge 141,000 metres cubes alors que le Zeppelin ne cube que 105,000 metres - Photo Meurisse". ("The new British airship R101 which has just been completed and which will be tested shortly. This rigid is more important than the Zeppelin, since it gauges 141,000 cubic meters while the Zeppelin only gauges 105,000 cubic meters - Photo Meurisse".) The piece will be shipped in a mat (17 x 13 in.) that fits a standard-sized frame. About: R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government program to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry–appointed team and was effectively in competition with the government-funded but privately designed and built R100. When built, it was the world's largest flying craft at 731 ft (223 m) in length, and it was not surpassed by another hydrogen-filled rigid airship until the Hindenburg flew seven years later. After trial flights and subsequent modifications to increase lifting capacity, which included lengthening the ship by 46 ft (14 m) to add another gasbag, the R101 crashed in France (in Beauvais) during its maiden overseas voyage on 5 October 1930, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. Among the passengers killed were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the program, senior government officials, and almost all the dirigible designers from the Royal Airship Works. The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development and was one of the worst airship accidents of the 1930s. The loss of life was more than the 36 killed in the highly public Hindenburg disaster of 1937, though fewer than the 52 killed in the French military Dixmude in 1923, and the 73 killed when the USS Akron...