Janny

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-65652

— . Unknown [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Friend
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-65653

— Friend. died Yes, date unknown. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Employer: Shurly and Dietrich Co., Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Employer: Maple Leaf Saw Works, Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-40523
• Occupation: 1875, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; saw maker
• Residence: 1875, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Occupation: 1881, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Saw Maker
• Historic Building: 1887, 21 Lansdowne Rd. N., Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Queen Anne-style home built 1887
• Occupation: 1893, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; saw maker
• Occupation: 1901, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; ?

William married Elizabeth Friend 16 Jun 1875, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. Elizabeth (daughter of Friend, daughter of Joseph Anthony Freund and Elisabeth Katharina Seiler) was born 26 Jul 1850, Woolwich Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; died Yes, date unknown. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-65655

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-103129

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-65649

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-65650

Other Events:

• Interesting: Canadian Aviation Corps
• Interesting: military, scandal, invention
• Military: WW1
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-40521P

Notes:

Ernest Lloyd Janney was born in 1894, a son of William and Elizabeth Janney. At the beginning of World War I, Mr. Janney, like many of his generation, was caught up in the excitement of the time. However, instead of enlisting in the army he pushed for the establishment of a Canadian flying corps. Although Mr. Janney appears to have had no background in either flying or the military, he did have a remarkable gift of persuasion. Through sheer perseverance he managed to convince the Minister of Defence, Sir Sam Hughes, to commission him a captain and to grant him $5,000 to assist in the assembly of a Canadian flying corps. In this way the Canadian Aviation Corps was born. With a floatplane purchased in Massachusetts, Mr. Janney, in the company of his assistant Lieut. W.F.N. Sharpe, arrived in England on October 17, 1914. His airplane was condemned as not airworthy and Mr. Janney was grounded. He then went on an unauthorized tour of British flying fields and aircraft factories and was listed as absent without leave. Then in November he made an appeal to the federal government for a grant of $116,000 to form a flight squadron. In response he was ordered to return home at once, was stripped of his commission and forced to resign in disgrace. All was not lost, however, and in May 1918 Mr. Janney was mentioned in an Admiralty dispatch as a member of the staff of the newly formed Royal Canadian Naval Air Service. Later that year Mr. Janney was piloting a Curtis Flying Boat which crashed into Toronto harbour. In 1921, a news bulletin from Edmonton reported that "Captain Janney" was organizing a dirigible air service from Peace River Alberta to Fort Norman in the Northwest Territories. There is no evidence that the service was ever implemented. A month after Charles Lindbergh completed his solo trans-Atlantic Atlantic flight on May 20, 1927, the New York Times announced that an E.L. Janney would attempt an Ottawa to London England flight on July 11. No record of the flight has been found. After that all knowledge of Mr. Janney fades and it remains to be determined if he was one of the many slick con men attempting to cash in on get rich quick aviation schemes or one of the true heroes of the early flying days.


Cambridge Mosaic, Jim Quantrell, 1998, City of Cambridge

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LOSES POUND A DAY IN JAIL.

Captain Janney Enters 33d Day of Hunger Strike in Alberta.

LETHBRIDGE, Alberta, Sept. 8.--Captain E.L. Janney, former British aviator, entered the thirty-third day of his hunger strike in the Lethbridge jail today, with a record of a pound in weight lost for every day he has been on strike. He weighed 170 pounds when he began abstaining from food and now weighs 137. Jail physicians reported his pulse and heart were considerably weakened and advised that forcible feeding be resorted to.

Captain Janney's hunger strike was begun in protest against his arrest on a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses in connection with flotation of an air craft company.

The New York Times 9 Sep 1921

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As of January 1932, he was still selling himself as a businessman and aviation pioneer; a Montreal newspaper described him as the "first Canadian to volunteer his services and be accepted as a war flier." He then dropped from sight. Reportedly, in September 1939, he sent a message to Ottawa: "Am still full of the old pep - let me know what I can do."

Legion Magazine - Canadian Military History in Perspective - A High Flyer, Indeed: Air Force, Park 4, July 1, 2004 by Hugh A. Halliday

Controversy:
This swept-wing, tailless seaplane of the Canadian Aviation Corps was the first Canadian military Aircraft having been bought for the newly formed (16 September, 1914) first military aviation service in Canada. As no Aircraft were available in Canada at the time, the newly appointed commander of the CAC, E.L. Janney, journeyed to Massachusettes, immediatley closed a deal for the purchase of the Aircraft, and had it shipped to Lake Champlain where an American pilot was ready to ferry it to Canada as Janney was not a qualified pilot. The Burgess-Dunne left Lake Champlain for Quebec City , Quebec where it arrived on 29 September after several delays and was shipped overseas on 30 September on board the S.S. Athenia. It was considered unworthy to fly.