Jean Batten
Jane Gardner Batten , commonly known as Jean Batten, was a New Zealand aviator who made several record-breaking flights – including the first solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936.
She made two unsuccessful attempts to fly from England to Australia solo before achieving the feat in May 1934, taking just under 15 days to fly the distance in a Gipsy Moth biplane. The flight set the record for a woman's solo flight between the two countries. After a publicity tour around Australia and New Zealand, she flew the Gipsy Moth back to England, setting the solo women's record for the return flight from Australia to England. She also became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia and back again. In November 1935, she set the absolute record of 61 hours, 15 minutes, for flying from England to Brazil. During this flight, in a Percival Gull Six monoplane, she completed the fastest crossing of the South Atlantic Ocean and was the first woman to make the England–South America flight. The pinnacle of her flying achievements came in October 1936, when she flew her Gull from England to New Zealand, covering the distance in a little over 11 days, an absolute record for 44 years. The following year she made her last major flight, flying from Australia to England to set a new solo record.
During the Second World War, Batten unsuccessfully applied to join the Air Transport Auxiliary. Instead, she joined the short-lived Anglo-French Ambulance Corps and worked in the munitions industry. After the war, Batten lived a reclusive and nomadic life with her mother, Ellen Batten, in Europe and the Caribbean. Ellen, a strong personality who dominated her daughter, died in Tenerife in 1967, and soon afterwards Batten returned to public life with several appearances related to aviation and her records. Her death in Mallorca in November 1982 from complications of a dog bite went unnoticed until discovered by a journalist in September 1987.
Early life
Jane Gardner Batten was born on 15 September 1909 in Rotorua, New Zealand, to Frederick Batten, a dentist, and his wife Ellen. She was the only daughter of the couple, who were both first-generation New Zealanders of English descent. She had two older brothers and a third who had died soon after birth. Although named for her grandmother, she soon became known as Jean. Being the youngest child as well as sickly, her mother, who had a domineering personality, doted on her. When she was four, the Batten family moved to Auckland.Commencing her education at a private school, Batten was switched to a state school in 1917. As her father had enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force to fight in the First World War, the family was on a reduced income. Batten's mother encouraged her in activities considered to be masculine at the time, such as taking her to Kohimarama to observe the flying boats of the flight school there. According to Batten's unpublished memoirs, these visits inspired her to pursue flying. After the war, Fred Batten was discharged from the NZEF and resumed his career as a dentist, moving his family from Devonport, where they had been renting, to Epsom. Her parents' relationship, already brittle due to Fred's extramarital relationships and Ellen's aloofness and reluctance to step back from running the household following her husband's return from the war, ended when the couple separated in 1920. This apparently affected Jean badly, who later vowed she would never get married. In later years Jean would deny her parents' breakup and maintain the marriage was a happy one.
Following the separation of her parents, Batten lived with her mother in Howick; Fred Batten, who lived with his sons near his dental practice on Queen Street, covered some living expenses. In 1922, Jean was sent to Ladies' College, a girls' boarding college in Remuera at her father's expense. Although she later described her time at the school as a happy one, she had few friends and many of her fellow students found her to be aloof. She finished her education in late 1924, refusing to go back the following year for her fifth form year. Instead, she studied music and ballet with an intention of pursuing a career in one of these disciplines. She soon became an assistant teacher at the ballet school where she trained, playing the piano during classes.
In May 1927, Batten read of Charles Lindbergh's exploit in flying non-stop across the Atlantic. This stirred her childhood interest in aviation, which was further agitated in 1928 when the Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith flew from Australia to New Zealand in his Southern Cross Fokker F.VII aircraft. Batten's father took her to a reception for Kingsford Smith in Auckland. On meeting him, she declared her intention to learn to fly, which Kingsford Smith considered to be a joke. She was humiliated and supposedly vowed to her mother afterwards that she would indeed fly. She followed this up in 1929 by taking a flight with Kingsford Smith while on a holiday in Sydney. On her return to Auckland, she informed her father of her intention to become a pilot, giving up plans to be a pianist or dancer. He did not approve, believing it an inappropriate career choice for a woman and refused to pay for flying lessons.
Flight training
Batten, encouraged by her mother, decided to go to England to learn to fly. As a pretext, she told her father that she was going to attend the Royal College of Music, although she later claimed he knew of her real intentions. Batten had a piano which she sold to fund the voyage to England for herself and her mother. In an interview given a few years later to a newspaper, Ellen Batten claimed she had property that was sold to supplement her daughter's funds. Her father provided an allowance to help support her in her supposed musical studies. Batten and her mother left New Zealand in early 1930, travelling to England aboard the RMS Otranto.On arrival in London in the spring of 1930, the duo found a room on James Street in the city's West End. Although her brother, John Batten, lived in London, working as a film actor with a key role in Under the Greenwood Tree, they saw little of him in case he discovered their true purpose in England and wrote to Batten's father. She joined the London Aeroplane Club, which was based at the Stag Lane Aerodrome in the northwest of London. In her unpublished memoirs, Batten wrote that she quickly took to flying and had a "natural aptitude for it". However, other students remembered her as a slow learner. In fact, an early solo flight ended in a crash landing, an incident she never referred to in her later writings. She was also remembered for boasting about planning a solo flight to New Zealand. When, in May, Amy Johnson, who also trained at the LAC, completed the first solo flight for a female pilot from England to Australia in 19 days, Batten sought not only to emulate Johnson but beat her record.
Batten earned her pilot's A licence on 5 December 1930. It had been a relatively protracted process; although only three hours of solo flying were required to qualify for the A licence, Batten could only accumulate the flying time in small amounts. Limited funds prevented extensive flying time and she only flew short flights two or three times a week. It was at this time that her father discovered the true purpose of the trip to England and, angered by the deception, ceased paying her allowance. Despite this, Batten was still determined to beat Johnson's England to Australia record but short of funds, in January 1931 she left with her mother for New Zealand. She hoped that family there would help fund her venture.
On the voyage to New Zealand, Batten met a fellow New Zealander, Flying Officer Fred Truman who was serving with the Royal Air Force in British India and going home on leave. The two struck up a friendship. Back in New Zealand, Batten reestablished a relationship with her father, whose anger at being deceived had eased by this time. He began to support her in her flying endeavours, paying for her to take lessons in navigation. Batten resumed flight training, joining the Auckland Aero Club, based at Māngere, and soon secured her New Zealand A pilot's licence. Her friendship with Truman had grown and he fostered hopes of a relationship. He also flew with Batten at the Auckland Aero Club but this soon ended when he had to rejoin his squadron.
Record attempts from England to Australia
Batten still harboured ambitions of an attempt to break the solo England-Australia flight and sought a sponsor to provide the necessary funding. By mid-1931, she decided to seek a B licence, which was required to become a commercial pilot, in the belief that it would add to her credibility with potential sponsors. In July she returned to England aboard the SMS Rotorua and resumed her flight training at the LAC. This was paid for with a £500 loan from Truman, although this was never acknowledged by Batten, who later wrote in her autobiography that her mother, still in New Zealand, provided the necessary funds. Truman left the RAF in 1932 and was soon in London as well, tutoring Batten in navigation while he also worked towards gaining a B licence. Batten gained hers in December 1932 and then disentangled herself from Truman without ever paying back the £500 he lent her.In addition to her flight training, Batten learnt how to maintain aircraft and their engines. This was helpful for while on a delivery flight for a Gipsy Moth biplane, she experienced engine trouble and had to land the aeroplane at Sandhurst Military Academy. She was able to facilitate a repair and continue the flight. During her time at the LAC, she met Victor Dorée, who came from a wealthy family. Dorée borrowed £400 from his mother to buy Batten a Gipsy Moth, with which she intended to beat Johnson's record for flying from England to Australia solo. The agreement, as later recalled by Batten in her autobiography, entitled Dorée to half of any profits to be made from the endeavour. Batten modified the Gipsy Moth, acquired from the King's Flight and previously flown by the then Prince of Wales, by fitting extra fuel tanks to increase its range to. Visas and landing rights in 14 countries were secured, she made arrangements for refueling, and obtained a plethora of information on landmarks along her route.