He began his aviation career as a balloonist, then joined the aircraft manufacturer, Voisin, in 1908, and made his first flight at Hamburg in 1909

Most early aviation records were set by pilots in the USA and Europe, with Indian aviators following much later. However, India had the honour of hosting the world’s first official air mail flight. The memorable event happened exactly a century ago in February 1911. It was an international affair because the flight authorised by the Indian Government, took place in India on a British-built aircraft and the pilot was French. Henri Pequet, who was born on February 1, 1888, at Bracquemont, France, happened to be in the right place at the right time to make the momentous first flight.

Messages have been conveyed by “pigeon mail” for at least two millennia. A letter may be attached to a pigeon at a remote location and the pigeon set free—it flies straight back to its home where its owner can collect the missive. The ancient Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Chinese were well-versed in the use of homing pigeons to deliver important letters. A modern, regularly run pigeon-based mail service was conducted by New Zealand Pigeon Post from 1897-1901. Of course, there’s the small matter of first conveying the pigeon to the originator of the message—generally in a cage.

Nowadays, “air mail” is usually understood as mail transported by aircraft. The first mail to be carried by an aircraft was on January 7, 1785, on a hot air balloon. Piloted by a Frenchman, Jean Pierre Blanchard, and an American, John Jeffries, the flight was made across the English Channel from Dover, England to the vicinity of Calais, France. Since then balloons (and later airships) were often used to convey mail. It took a few years from the introduction of the world’s first powered aeroplane for air mail as we know it today to emerge. This is how it happened.

In early 1911, a great adventurer and sailor named Sir Walter Windham, was touring India with some aircraft and two European pilots (one of whom was Henri Pequet). While in Allahabad, the Vicar of the Holy Trinity Church met Windham with a request to help him raise funds for a new hostel for Indian students. Windham had the bright idea of raising some money by carrying mail with a special postmark by air across the River Ganga to Naini. He wanted it to be billed as the world’s first aerial post. The Director General of Post Offices in India and the Postmaster General of UP readily approved the collection, cancellation and transport of mail aboard one of Windham’s planes. The next step was to advertise the flight as widely as possible. A surcharge of six annas (37 paise today) was prescribed that would go entirely towards the students’ hostel. Letters poured in from across India. They were sorted and marked with a unique cancellation stamp—“First Aerial Post, UP Exhibition, Allahabad, 1911”. A special cancelling die had been cut in the postal workshop at Aligarh for the purpose. Finally, more than 6,100 pieces of mail arrived in time for the historic flight on February 18, 1911.