By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
“Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.” – Remembering Robert William “Bob” Bradford (1923-2023), Part 2
Dec 24, 2023
Media
A beaming Robert William Bradford thanking Francis Fox, Minister of Communications, at the ceremony which signaled the start of the construction work on the new National Aviation Museum, Rockcliffe Park, Ontario, May 1983. CASM, 16020.
It is once again with profound sadness that I begin this second part of our brief tribute to the late Robert William Bradford, aviation artist extraordinaire and former director of what is today the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario.
Bradford was appointed Acting Director of the National Museum of Science and Technology, in Ottawa, in December 1981 when the founding director of that Canadian national museum, the Canadian teacher / photographer / geologist / explorer David McCurdy Baird, left his position. He occupied said position until the American Canadian physicist / professor James William “Bill” McGowan got the nod, in July 1983.
McGowan’s arrival signaled Bradford’s appointment as Associate Director of the National Aviation Museum, as the National Aeronautical Collection had become, in September 1982. It was Bradford himself who had suggested the change in name.
Two of the four stamps launched in 1979 with the help of Robert William Bradford. Those stamps showed a Curtiss HS-2L forest patrol flying boat operated by the Ontario Provincial Air Service between 1926 and 1928 and a Canadair CL-215 water bombing amphibian operated by the Service aérien du gouvernement du Québec in service in 1979. CASM, 1998.0566.
Two of the four stamps launched in 1982 with the help of Robert William Bradford. Those stamps showed a de Havilland Canada Beaver bushplane operated by North Canada Air Limited of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, between 1972 and 1980, and a Fairchild FC-2W bushplane operated by Canadian Transcontinental Airways of Montréal, Québec, between 1927 and 1929. Incidentally, the Beaver in question, the very first Beaver in fact, is on display at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario. CASM, 1998.0573.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bradford was busy fulfilling a series of commissions for the Post Office Department and its successor, Canada Post Corporation. Indeed, he created the artwork for no less than 16 stamps which came out between 1979 and 1982:
1979 – Canadair CL-215, Consolidated Canso, Curtiss HS-2L and Vickers Vedette;
1980 – Avro Lancaster, Avro Canada CF-100, Curtiss JN-4 Canuck and Hawker Hurricane;
1981 – Avro Canada Jetliner, Canadair CL-41 Tutor, de Havilland Tiger Moth and de Havilland Canada Dash 7; and
1982 – de Havilland Canada Beaver, Fairchild FC-2W1, Fokker Super Universal and Noorduyn Norseman.
All of those flying machines played a significant role in the development of aviation in Canada.
It should be noted that the world class collection of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum includes a Beaver, a Canso, a Canuck, a CF-100, a Dash 7, an HS-2L, a Hurricane, a Lancaster, a Norseman and a Tutor.
By the way, that fabulous collection also includes a de Havilland Menasco Moth and a Fairchild FC-2W-2 as well as the nose of the Jetliner.
From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Baird and Bradford worked day and night to convince the powers that be of the necessity of housing the magnificent aircraft collection of the museum in a building worthy of it. You see, that collection was still housed in the Second World War era wooden hangars which had housed it since the 1960s. Those hangars were no longer in the best of shapes. There were some, if not many, who referred to those buildings as firetraps.
The sad truth was that wooden buildings which housed aircraft did go up in flames in the 1970s. In February 1980, for example, a hangar on the site of Calgary International Airport burned in Calgary, Alberta. No less than 37 small aircraft were destroyed. The total cost of the blaze was estimated at approximately $ 4 250 000, a sum which corresponds to almost $ 15 000 000 in 2023 currency.
Another fire, in February 1978, had destroyed 45 or so aircraft, all too often irreplaceable aircraft, of the San Diego Aerospace Museum, in San Diego, California, as well as the collection of memorabilia of the International Aerospace Hall of Fame. No sum of money could replace what was lost that day in the US $ 15 000 000 fire, a blaze which had allegedly been set by two teenage boys who were never identified. Those US $ 15 000 000 correspond to more than $ 95 000 000 in 2023 Canadian currency.
The federal government’s initial response to Baird and Bradford’s pleas was that it could not afford to pay for a new building. If the risk to the collection was deemed to be so high, suggested someone in authority, possibly someone from the Department of Communications, the department which governed the activities of the national museums of Canada, they should consider the possibility sending the aircraft to various locations in the country.
The Secretary of State (1980-81) and Minister of Communications (1980-84), Francis Fox, finally proved sympathetic to Baird and Bradford’s pleas for assistance. In 1982, he convinced the Cabinet of Canada to allocate approximately $ 20 000 000 for the first phase of a three-phase development program for a national aviation museum in Ottawa. That sum corresponds to slightly more than $ 56 000 000 in 2023 currency.
The usual sod turning ceremony took place in May 1983 at Rockcliffe, Ontario, near the Second World War era wooden hangars of the National Aviation Museum. The photograph at the beginning of the second part of this article showed that very ceremony.
The new building of the National Aviation Museum opened its doors to the general public in June 1988.
I was there that day, very much behind the scenes as befitted my humble status as an education officer.
Although magnificent, the various sections of the museum contained less than half of its world-class collection. A good part of the aircraft was actually stored in a section of the building that the general public could not really visit. Worse still, the museum’s largest machines were still stored outside, where they were at the mercy of the elements.
You see, budget considerations beyond the control of the museum and government had reduced the size of the building by about 30%.
Even so, Bradford was very pleased that the National Aviation Museum finally had a modern building to house its collections.
Bradford retired in July 1989.
The last major project he was involved with was the 80th anniversary of the first controlled and sustained flight of a powered aeroplane in Canada, in February 1989. That flight had of course taken place in February 1909, at Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
The aircraft involved in that aerial journey was the Aerial Experiment Association’s Aerodrome No 4 Silver Dart, piloted that day by the Canadian engineer John Alexander Douglas McCurdy. A replica of that aircraft which flew in February 1959 is on display in the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.
Bradford’s retirement did not mean that he abandoned Canada’s aviation heritage. That gentleman of gentlemen was now able to spend as much time as he wanted working on the superb works of art that he was justly famous for.
Two cases in point were…
First over the Barrens (circa 1990, acrylic on canvas), which depicts the fortuitous yet most welcome meeting of the Western Canada Airways Limited Fokker Super Universal bushplane piloted by Clennell Haggerston “Punch” Dickins and the Northland Echo II, a sternwheeler river boat operated by Northern Traders Company which carried the fuel the aircraft happened to need, near Fitzgerald, Alberta, September 1928. CASM, 1995.1624.
Thunder in the Arctic (circa 1998, acrylic on canvas), which depicts a de Havilland Mosquito photographic mapping aircraft operated by Spartan Air Services Limited between 1955 and 1957, over Kattimannap Qurlua, Nunavut, formerly Wilberforce Falls, North West Territories. The cameo portrait depicts the firm’s chief pilot, Rénald J. “Rocky” Laroche. CASM, 1998.0870.
Throughout these years, Bradford conducted a very successful career as an aviation artist. His works, dealing primarily with the history of flight in Canada, can be found in many important collections, such as those of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, the Canadian War Museum and Library and Archives Canada, in Ottawa; Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in Calgary, Alberta; the Billy Bishop Museum in Owen Sound, Ontario; the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, New York; etc.
Mind you, Bradford has also done commissioned work for such crown corporations and private firms as Air Canada Incorporated and de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited of Downsview, Ontario.
His work as an artist has been recognised internationally, with the Aviation Artist Award of the American Aviation Historical Society in 1974, a first for a Canadian artist, and the Diplôme Paul Tissandier of the Fédération aéronautique internationale of Paris, France, in 1982.
A lifetime member of the Royal Canadian Institute for Science, Bradford became the patron of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society in 1988.
Robert William Bradford with Roman Ivanovych Hnatyshyn, Governor General of Canada, on the day the former received the Order of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, October 1989. Robert William Bradford.
In recognition of his lifetime achievements in the preservation of Canada’s aviation heritage, Bradford was awarded the Order of Canada in October 1989. He was inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in June 1996.
Robert William Bradford left this Earth on 25 May 2023. He was 99 years old.
Even though he was known far and wide, Bradford was both humble and quiet. Even so, he could be forceful when needed. He had what could be described as a mischievous wit – and knew a good hat when he saw one.
He will be sorely missed by his innumerable friends.
The next time you pay a visit to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, a museal institution that this gentleman of gentlemen loved so much, you may wish to have in mind the quote which introduced this article, a quote lifted from a plaque in the crypt of the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, in London, England, a plaque dating from 1723 which honours the memory of the great English architect / astronomer / mathematician / physicist Sir Christopher Wren: “Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.”
Reader, if you require a monument, look around you.
Rénald Fortier
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