Wilbury Wainwright Wrong . . . . The A to Z of Slightly Strange Unknown Victorian Inventors and Explorers

Wilbury Wainwright Wrong

Wibury Wainwright Wrong was brought up in a strange household where his father also an eminent inventor of his day, had gone slightly mad and spent much of his time sat in the bath with a bicycle wheel on his head convinced he was a penguin. And when Wibury Wainwright Wrong reached the age of 18 he promised his father that he would make a machine that would allow them both to fly like the birds. So it was that Wilbury assisted by his younger brother Womble Wainwright Wrong built the Winged Wonder which successfully flew 300 yards in 1882 powered by a tiny steam engine which produced 14 HP. There were few witnesses as their father who also got to fly would leap out of the plane on landing and start rummaging for worms in the ground.

They thought little of their achievement as it was done to satisfy their fathers need to be a bird, but many years later they did complain that the Wright brothers were not the first people to achieve powered flight.  It was the Preposterous Club of Great Britain who took up the cause and complained to the American Embassy in London saying that the Wright brothers were wrong and the Wrong brothers were right. Well as you might expect this got very confusing and folk did not know if  the Wrights were right and Wrong’s wrong or wrong was right and Wright was wrong. Confused even more when someone said Two Wrongs don’t make a Wright, which led to a fight in Trafalgar Square where unfortunately  Wainwright Wrong senior still convinced he was a bird climbed Nelsons column and did something unspeakable on the head of Nelson while eating peanuts.  Everyone agreed this was wrong so in order to avoid the issue turning up in history Wibury Wainwright Wrong let history say that the Wright Brothers achieved mans first powered flight.

However the Wright Brothers got very paranoid after that and demanded that no one else was allowed to fly in the sky ever and spend many years chasing men dressed as penguins with bicycle wheels on their heads. Unaware that this was a common Victorian inventors ailment rather that a practical effort at manned flight.  As for the Wainwright Wrong family they lived a quiet life designing penguin enclosures one of which (the award winning Penguin House) at London Zoo has got a subtle hint of the propeller from their now forgotten monoplane the Winged Wonder. .