Francis Shelmerdine

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Francis Claude Shelmerdine CIE, OBE, FRAeS (25 October 1881 – July 1945) was a senior officer in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War and a civil servant working in connection with civil aviation in the post-war years.

Francis Claude Shelmerdine was born at Churchill, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire on 25 October 1881, son of the Rev.

Shelmerdine served in France and in Egypt and in November 1915, was transferred from Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment (unofficially known as the Green Howards at that time) to the Royal Flying Corps.

He returned to the Air Ministry in 1931 as the home country's Director of Civil Aviation following the death of Sir Sefton Branker who was killed in the R101 airship crash.

[4] He was subsequently married to Lillian Sealey Playne, formerly Hanham, (née Haskins), Lady Shelmerdine (17 September 1884 – 11 July 1956) at St George's Hanover Square in 1925.