Robert Graham CareyPrint Page

The plaque commemorates aviator Robert Graham Carey who force landed his Bleriot monoplane in the vicinity in November 1917 while attempting the first Adelaide to Gawler airmail run.

Robert Graham Carey was born at Warrnambool in Victoria in 1874. He gained his commercial pilot’s licence in 1916 after buying his first aeroplane, a Bleriot 60, in 1915.  It was in this aeroplane, originally brought to Australia by a stunt aviator, M. Guillaux, that Carey made the first airmail flight from Adelaide to Gawler on November 23, 1917.

In 1919 Carey bought four Maurice-Farman aeroplanes, former training planes, from Point Cook, and formed his own company, Melbourne Air Service, at Port Melbourne in Victoria, leasing Crown land for his aerodrome, office and home. He was involved in air delivery, aerial photography, dropping advertising leaflets, and advertisements painted on his plane wings as well as providing passenger services and joyflights. 

AEROPLANE ACCIDENT. Mr. R. Graham Carey, the Victorian aviator, met with a mishap during a flight on Saturday. He had arranged to proceed from Enfield and to take with him a mail, including letters from the Mayor of Adelaide to His Excellency the Governor, and from the Speaker of the House of Assembly to the Mayor of Gawler. Shortly after starting the aviator had to descend near to Islington owing to engine troubles. As he was ascending again from a small paddock, the lower part of the aeroplane caught against a wire fence, and the machine fell heavily and was somewhat damaged. In the absence of appliances to effect adjustments, the flight had to be abandoned. Mr. Carey was not hurt. He expects to have the Bleriot ready for use again today and to do some flying this afternoon, possibly to Gawler. He will leave Adelaide on Wednesday for Ballarat.
Register (Adelaide), 5 November 1917.

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