Authors: Ben Ruhe
Date Submitted: November 30, 2003
Article Type: Journal

Through surprising turns of fate, the Brookite company of Okehanpton, Dartmoor, in far southwest England, appears to be the oldest continuously operated kite company in England, and probably Europe.

Brookite was registered as a business in 1906, although it may well been running before then, by the brothers Tommy and Walter Brooke. Mad for kites at a time when aviation was all the rage in Europe, the Brooke brothers peddled their kites at English beaches from a motorcycle. One brother flew kites, the other sold.

The business flourished and Brookite records show photographs of a company kite being used by Marconi in one of his pioneering long distance voice transmissions, this one in 1910 from Newfoundland to the steamship Principessa Mafalda in Clifton, Ireland. Almost a century later, Brookite (the “e” was dropped early by the Brooke brothers) makes and sells the exact same kite——a winged, double-box Conyne. The shape is the same, the wooden spars the same. As a concession to the revolution in kite materials, the Brookite Marconi kite today is offered with ripstop nylon sails instead of cotton ones.

PDF Link: Journal Issue