Billing

History

Eardley Delauny (or Delauney) Billing was born in 1873 in Kensington, London, the son of Charles Eardley Billing, a Birmingham iron-founder, and his wife, Annie Amelia Billing (neé Claridge). He was the of six children; four sisters, one of whom died in infancy, and a brother, Noel Pemberton.

1896 Eardley moved to Coventry to work for Edward Pennington’s Great Horseless Carriage Company ant in 1898 Billing, together with Arthur Hallet, formed the Endurance Motor Company. The company was wound up in 1900 and Billing returned to London as manager of the Motor Mart. He resigned the following year and formed the Central Motor Company in Tottenham St, Tottenham Court Road, a feature of whose business was the letting out on hire of motor-bicycles. In 1907 he formatted a new company, Carlton Garage Ltd.

Noel Pemberton Billing acquired a considerable stretch of marshland at Fambridge with the intention of offering facilities to aeroplane experimenters and Eardley Billing was among the group of mechanics and experimenters who joined Noel there. The marshland site at South Fambridge proved to be unsuitable for flying and Pemberton Billing was forced to abandon the project; by early 1910 the colony had been disbanded and Eardley had moved to Brooklands, where he found a position as the manager of Lane’s Gliding School. It was here that Billing created and patented a ground trainer, the Eardley Billing Oscillator, which was exhibited at the Stanley Show in November 1910.

The Billing tractor biplane was constructed at Brooklands in 1910 using the wings of a Voisin pusher Billing had acquired from C.A. Moreing. The engine was a 40 h.p. ENV Type D. It was originally flown with an uncovered fuselage but fabric was added later. The machine was in use from May 1911 to the end of the season, becoming nicknamed the 'Oozley Bird'. The Billing biplane was crashed on 4 October 1911 by N.S. Percival, who rebuilt it as the Percival Parseval I at the end of 1911.

In the latter part of 1911 Billing was in charge of the Deperdussin School at Brooklands, having taken over from Gordon Bell. Eardley and his wife Ada also ran the Bluebird restaurant at Brooklands until its closure at the outbreak of war. Billing had previously made a ground trainer, the Eardley Billing Oscillator, at Brooklands which was exhibited at the Stanley Show in November 1910.

Billing left Brooklands and returned to London in 1913 owing to failing health. Eardley Delauny Billing died on 19 November 1915 in the Essex and Colchester Asylum, to where he had been moved from London.

Company References

1. Blowing in the Wind: Eardley Billing’s Oscillator and its Successors, Martin Bolton (Journal of Aeronautical History Paper 2018/06, Royal Aeronautical Society)