Fred Custance flies in face of doubters as war pilot, road racer plus courage to the last in South Australia's north
Fred Custance (top, at right) as co driver and mechanic to G. Gilmore White aboard White’s 35-h.p. Talbot motorcar that broke records in 1909 for time travelled between Melbourne and Adelaide and then Melbourne and Sydney. At right: A tyre company cashing in on the feat. Bottom left: Custance, possibly at right, working with Fred Jones on his Bleriot monoplane.
F. C. (Fred) Custance’s claim to have piloted Australia’s first plane flight at Bolivar, north of Adelaide, in 1910 was doubted but the rest of his life was proof of his ability as a war pilot, as a road race, plus enterprise and courage.
Custance was the son of professor J.C. Custance who returned in South Australia after being founder of its Roseworthy Agricultural College in the 1880s and pioneering the use of superphosphate.
An imaginative youth fond of sketching and engineering, Fred Custance was employed in Adelaide automotive leader Vivian Lewis's workshop. His mechanical knowledge was rewarded in 1913 by running the business’s Kooringa branch.
Custance's adventurous streak loomed when he, as mechanic and co driver, accompanied G. Gilmore White in his 35 horse power Talbot (bought through Lewis) to break the Melbourne-Adelaide record, arriving at the General Post Office, Adelaide city, at 5.36 p.m. on March 17, 1909, in 20 hours six minutes. Nine months later, the pair took on the Melbourne-Sydney overland trip. After taking the wrong road at Albury, they got through in 21 house 19 minutes or four hours and 21 minutes better than the previous best time.
Three years later, Custance made more history by his successful attempt on W. E. Peverill’s 24 hours motor cycle record. Custance made the Maitland-Ardrossan-Athurton circuit 14 times on his three and a half horse power air-cooled Lewis on November 22, 1922, and with an hour still to go, he’d completed 532 miles in 23 hours 11 minutes – 10 miles in advance of the previous best distance.
His 1910 Adelaide-Sydney motoring record, with Allen Doone, wasn’t as successful, due to technical glitches. That year, he arranged to make the initial flight at Bolivar in a Bleriot monoplane, imported by Adelaide businessman Fred Jones. A 5am before daylight on March 17, Custance allegedly piloted the monoplane three times around a paddock for "5 minutes 25 seconds". The doubt on the feat was thrown by Jones who later claimed he was the pilot.
Custance, who crashlanded in a second attempt to fly the monplance, proved his flying ability during World War I service. He first served with the motor ambulance but, along with several South Australians, was chosen to train with the Australian Flying Squadron, at Point Cook. He sailed in 1916 to Palestine and was promoted to sergeant with feats such as flying from Cairo to Suez, and on to Romani, in 40 hours. He was invalided home shortly before the Armistice.
Back in Adelaide, Custance impressed a prominent pastoral station owner by suggesting the Caterpillar tractor (used to haul the heavy artillery in Palestine) would be ideal for developing outback country. Custance was sent to the United States of America to secure the Holt Motor Tractor agency for Vrai Limited at the Adelaide suburb of Torrensville. In 1919, he was sent by Vrai to deliver a 45 horse power tractor to A. J. & P. A. McBride's Tardea Station, outback from Port Augusta. He oversaw the tractor and its loaded wagons defy the doubters and negotiate the flat saltpans, heavy drift sand and soft blue clay at the head of Spencer's Gulf (Yorkey's Crossing).
The Custance suspension spring was one of his inventions that had big possibilities for the future.
In June 1923, Custance went to Telechie Station, out from Olary in South Australia’s far northeast, to demonstrate a Holt caterpillar tractor. He was returning with Trevor Hawker to catch the Broken Hill express train to Adelaide when their car broke down in a creek. Custance, weakened by trying to get the car out of the creek, started walking to Olarv for help while Hawker stayed by the car. He was founded dead beside the road next morning after a bitterly cold night.
