Vivian Hewitt was a pioneering Welsh aviator. Born in Grimsby, he moved to Bodfari

Bodfari

Bodfari is a village in Denbighshire, Wales.- Location :Bodfari is located at approximate grid reference SJ093701. The village lies on the A541 road at the point where the road passes through a gap in the Clwydian Hills, the gap being part of the valley of the River Wheeler .The Offa's Dyke...

, Denbighshire

Denbighshire

Denbighshire is a county in north-east Wales. It is named after the historic county of Denbighshire, but has substantially different borders. Denbighshire has the distinction of being the oldest inhabited part of Wales. Pontnewydd Palaeolithic site has remains of Neanderthals from 225,000 years...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 his mother's family home, on the death of his father during his childhood.

On 26 April 1912, Hewitt successfully completed a flight between Holyhead and Dublin, landing in the Phoenix Park

Phoenix Park

Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...

. Interviewed by the press, he expressed the view that Damer Leslie Allen

Damer Leslie Allen

Damer Leslie Allen was an Irish-born early twentieth-century aviator. He disappeared on 18 April 1912, while attempting to fly from Holyhead, Wales to Ireland in a Blériot monoplane...

, who had disappeared a few days earlier whilst attempting the same flight, had been insufficiently experienced as an aviator for a task of such difficulty.

Although widely reported to be the first person to cross the sea from Great Britain to Ireland in an aeroplane, several days earlier, on 22 April Denys Corbett Wilson

Denys Corbett Wilson

Denys Corbett Wilson was a pioneering Irish aviator.He is most notable for his 100-minute flight on 22 April 1912, from Goodwick in Pembrokeshire to Enniscorthy - from the island of Great Britain to the island of Ireland...

 had flown from Goodwick

Goodwick

Goodwick is a coastal town in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales, immediately west of its twin town of Fishguard. Goodwick was a small fishing village in the parish of Llanwnda, but in 1887 work commenced on a railway connection and harbour, and the village grew rapidly to service this...

 in Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....

 to Enniscorthy

Enniscorthy

Enniscorthy is the second largest town in County Wexford, Ireland. The population of the town and environs is 9538. The Placenames Database of Ireland sheds no light on the origins of the town's name. It may refer either to the "Island of Corthaidh" or the "Island of Rocks". With a history going...

. Nevertheless, the view was expressed at the time that Hewitt's flight was "a more difficult and dangerous feat" than Corbett Wilson's.