Morriss, P. G. B. (Percival George Brockhurst), 1884-1944

Percival George Brockhurst Morriss (1884-1944), a native of England, learned to fly at Brooklands racetrack in 1909. Soon after that he came to the United States. A former assistant engineer in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, he championed the use of wireless to communicate with airplanes in flight. He worked as a pilot for the Bleriot company, and by 1911 he had become associated with the Benoist Airplane Company of St. Louis, Mo., as a pilot, instructor and salesman. He also experimented with taking motion pictures in flight.

He opened the Bud Morriss Airplane School in Chicago in 1917. During World War I, Morriss enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and was selected to operate the Great Lakes Aviation School near Chicago, where he directed the training of 5,000 men. In 1928 he became one of the founding members of the Early Birds of Aviation, Inc., an organization of pre-World War I flyers, and was elected their first president. In later years he managed the Hotel Clark in Los Angeles, where he maintained clubrooms for the Early Birds.

The Early Birds of Aviation, established December 17, 1928, was a group, eventually numbering nearly 600, in which membership was restricted to those who had flown solo before World War I. In the United States, the cutoff date was established at December 17, 1916. In Europe, where the war necessitated the earlier training of war pilots, the cutoff date was August 4, 1914. Many of the early aviation pioneers had been killed before the group was organized, but their accomplishments were celebrated all the same.