Percy Russell Grace was born on 6 June 1879 in Ballybrophy, County Laois, Ireland. He was the fourth son of an Irish banker named John William Grace and his wife, Mary Josephine (née Carew.) Percy’s father’s work took him worldwide (one of his sons was born in Chile), and in the 1880s, he took up residence with his family in New York. After high school, Percy attended Princeton, where he studied until 1898 when his family left the USA for England. In 1904, during a spell back in America, Percy wrote a summary of his post-Princeton life to his old college friends:

On May 18, 1898, I left Princeton and America, and followed my family over to England, where my father, because of being unable to stand the climate of New York, had decided to make his home.

My reasons for hurrying so precipitously after him were many and varied, but be that as it may, I arrived there and started in on a grand change of my plans and intentions for carrying out the balance of my existence.

To-day (sic) I am sitting on a veranda in Vivian, W. Va., near Edgar Clausen, and writing this letter, erstwhile the aforementioned “Ed“ is trying to work out whether New York, with 20 W. and 10 L., has or has not a better average record than Cincinnati with 18 W. and 9 L. I have been away so long and feel such a stranger that I am unable to help him out in such matters.

The first thing I did after arriving in England and having finished the short run on the Continent, which always forms a part thereof, was to go up to Sunderland in the north and start in the “Yard“ to do the practical work at first, and gradually work up until I occupied a menial position in the drawing office.

After about two years I went home to stay with my father, who was not feeling very well and prepared to go to Glasgow University to take a course there in naval architecture. I entered Glasgow in October 1900 and was there for two years, and just managed to get through by the skin of my teeth. In the summers between terms, I worked in two different yards, one near Glasgow and one near Newcastle, and in the autumn of 1902 went to the Royal Technical High School of Berlin, where I studied for a year.

In November 1903, I got home with a piece of paper profusely signed and countersigned, but this is the weakness which Germans have. I was not very well and remained at home until the middle of April 1904, and then articled myself aboard a new cargo steamer sailing from Newcastle to New York, and saw the sky-scrapers on May 1, 1904, and was soon rubbing shoulder to shoulder with them.

The first 1901-er I met was Everett Crawford “married, as usual, I mean like the rest of them who are not “Out West“go. Letters from the Class or otherwise handicapped, and since then I have been learning that there have been Princetonians in about every town or place that I have been in during the last six years and that I have been steadily missing them.

I was at the famous Henley Regatta, which was loaded with them, and never met one. To prove the rule I met Batt in Berlin, married by now, I expect. He has been lifting cups down at the University at Jena.

My plans for the future are a little uncertain, except as regards the coming Reunion, but no doubt I will start insomewhere in the vicinity of New York, and any communication addressed to 1 and 2 Hanover Square, New York City, will find me, and coming from Princeton it will be welcome, even should it be an unsettled laundry bill.

I am not married.

With warmest greetings, Yours ever, Percy Grace.

Percy’s father eventually took up residence at Leybourne Grange, near West Malling, but died in Mayfair, London on 19 September 1904. After three years of further study in California, Percy returned to England in 1908 and became one of the first in the country to own a motor car. Along with his brother, the well-known airman Cecil Stanley Grace, he went to Sheppey in late autumn of the same year and established a staff of skilled workmen and well-equipped workshops that made flying machines. Percy and Cecil were members of the exclusive Aero Club of Great Britain (Cecil was the fourth person awarded a membership certificate), and in 1910 Cecil entered a competition for the Baron de Forest Prize of £4,000 (about £425,000 in 2015) for the longest flight from England into continental Europe.

He took off from Swingate Downs on 22 December and made it across the channel; however, adverse weather conditions forced him to land prematurely but he still attempted to return to England. At about 3:00 pm, Cecil was spotted six miles out to sea near Goodwin Sands before disappearing from view. Several weeks later, on 6 January1911, his goggles and cap washed ashore in Belgium, and a badly decomposed body fitting his description was discovered floating in Ostend Harbour on 14 March.

Percy was deeply affected by his brother’s death, and he ceased all his aeronautical work as a result of the tragedy. Later that year, he decided to take a round-the-world trip with his wife Dorothy Septima Humphreys, whom he had married in Chelsea in 1910, after which, they returned to her pre-marital home at Malling House in West Malling. Two years later, they moved to Wrotham Heath House.

Percy had inherited substantial amounts of money from his father and brother, enabling him to live the lifestyle of a gentleman of ‘independent means’ in the years leading up to the start of the war. He made several more international trips with his wife – the last being in April 1914 when they sailed for New York on the RMS Olympic (sister ship to the Titanic).

Realising his experience with aircraft would be of benefit to the military, Percy enlisted soon after war broke out and joined the Royal Flying Corps. His service papers mention his flying experience until that point, noting that he had ‘gained technical experience flying machines since 1909, and owned aircraft from then until 1912’. In November 1914, Percy was gazetted as 2nd Lieutenant but remained on the ground until August 1916, when he took a piloting refresher course. After this, Percy served in Egypt with the 20th Reserve Wing and was hospitalised for about a month in March 1917 with a virulent form of tuberculosis. That summer, he was mentioned in despatches while serving as a flight commander at the temporary rank of major.

On 25 June 1917, Percy returned to England. Due to ongoing ill health, he relinquished his commission in November 1918 and was granted the honorary rank of major.

Percy’s health never fully recovered, and he died on 27 February 1922 at Wrotham Heath House. His long-lasting legacy is the Platt and District Scout movement, which he started just before the war.

Scott Wishart