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Award winning Book – India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer

By Gurbir Dated: November 24, 2021 Leave a Comment

Stephen H Smith
India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer Stephen H Smith From Pigeonmail to Rocketmail

Delighted to see that my book “India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer” has been awarded the “Large Silver Award” by the Christchurch (New Zealand) Philatelic Society.

Singh, Gurbir (United Kingdom) LARGE SILVER AWARD for India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer

https://www.cps.gen.nz/page/442611

This was one of many entries in the 17th New Zealand National Philatelic Literature Exhibition in the Class A — Books & Monographs category on 20th November 2021. The CPS is one of the oldest philatelic organisations (founded in 1911) and has remained active since. More about the CPS here.

This book is the story of Stephen Smith who worked alone and unsupported between 1934 and 1944 on developing rockets as a method of transport. He demonstrated that that rockets could be used to transports food, mail, medicines and even livestock.

Smith tried to engage the (first British) Indian Government and after Independent India’s government but without avail. We wrote to the chief minister of Bengal and Nehru himself but got no response.

One of his longest lasting relationship was with Dr Robert Paganini in Switzerland. They correspond for over 25 years. Although they never met, when Paganini died in 1950, he left a quarter of his wealth to Smith. Smith died just 3 months later in February 1951.

More about this book – two podcasts where I answer questions

  • 10 July 2020. Interplanetary Podcast. India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer.
  • 19 June 2020. New Space India Podcast. India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer.

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Review of Book of – India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer

By Gurbir Dated: October 5, 2020 Leave a Comment

A review of my book “India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer” in the October 2020 edition of Spaceflight – the monthly journal of the British Interplanetary Society. A copy of the short review below.
Based in London, the BIS is the oldest independent space advocacy organisation in the World. It was founded in Liverpool in 1933. It is entirely a membership based organisation with many events organised annually. Former members include Patrick Moore, George Bernard Shaw and Arthur C Clarke. The Journal is subscription only – learn more and join the BIS here

Not forgotten

A new breed of space historian has emerged in the last decade giving voice to forgotten lives every bit the equal of those fortune determined would become famous and lead the race into orbit and beyond. And the world of astronautics is the better for it. Other lives matter. This book from a leading space historian is a very welcome addition and brings a reminder of how much we have been missing from the chronicle of global achievements in rocketry and space exploration. For too long we have focused on the big names such as Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, Goddard, von Braun and Korolev. This book helps to restore the balance through the story of a minor player, a life worth recording because it tells the story of a man obsessed with future possibilities, and that should resonate well with readers of this magazine. It is the story of Stephen Smith, a big name in the world of philately but not well-known at all for his achievements in astronautics.

Stephen Smith caught the attention of this author during his research into his magnum opus on India’s Space programme, its origins, development and evolution, and inspired Gubir Singh to research more deeply into the life of this Anglo Indian. A man whose work was lost in the chaos that attached itself to India’s independence in the 1940s and the turmoil caused by political upheaval. It is a terribly sad reflection on the shifting winds of fortune that Smith’s work was overwhelmed by those seismic national forces.

For a decade from the mid-1930s, Smith worked alone in Calcutta conducting experiments with rockets and their potential for practical application. Combining his great interests in stamps and the mail service, he developed the idea of using rockets to deliver mail and in this aspiration joined other pioneers in other countries, such as Schmeidl in Austria, Zucker in Germany and Pendray in the United States. As Singh notes in this fascinating account of Smith’s life, the world was changing and the advancement of civil aviation and associated technical capabilities had, by the end of the 1930s, made rocket mail redundant.

Denied the opportunities and the support for his rocketry by the travails of wrenching India from the grip of Empire, Stephen Smith’s life passed into obscurity. This book is all the more rewarding because it puts light to the life of a pioneer whose work was denied the publicity it deserved by politics, war and the exhausting liberation of a continent from foreign ownership. This a must- read book. Available at an exceptionally low price, fully illustrated and with a pleasing, period design, I cannot recommend it too highly.

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Online via Zoom. History of Britain in Space, Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 visit to London and Manchester, Covid-19 Facts and Fiction, and Cybersecurity

By Gurbir Dated: July 21, 2020 Leave a Comment

C3844735 10:00 Tue July 28th Britain in Space. The story of Britain’s space programme. Single presentation. Online and Free register here.

Tim Peake. Credit ESA
  • Early rocketry Societies in England
  • Development of British Ballistic Missile & Nuclear Tests in Australia
  • Launch Satellite of Black Arrow & satellite Prospero from Woomera
  • British Astronauts Helen Sharman & Tim Peake
  • UK Spaceports
  • Virgin Galactic & Orbit
  • SSTL and Skylon

C3844737 10:00 Thu July 30th. The Day the Cosmonaut came to Manchester. Single presentation. Free and online. Register here.

This presentation is based on my 2011 book – Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester. It will cover

  • Gagarin’s achievement?
  • What was he like as an individual?
  • Why he came to Britain?
  • Where in London and Manchester he went and who he met?
  • Legacy of his visit?

C3844797 11:00 Fri July 31st Covid-19 Facts and Fiction. Single presentation. Online and free. register here.

Covid-19

With support from Dr James Anson, a microbiologist and medical director at Liverpool Clinical laboratories, we explore the truth behind the globally popular myths listed on the World Health Organisation website.


C3844740 Staying Safe online. Starts Mon 3rd August. Introduction to key concepts and principles in information security for home computer users. Four weekly sessions. Register here

17:15 Aug 3rd Week1: Cyber Security concepts – an introduction
17:15 Aug 6th Week2: Common Cyber Attacks
17:15 Aug 10 Week3: Secure home working
17:15 Aug 13
Week4: Online Tools and resources

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Stephen Smith and Leslie Johnson. Development of rockets during the 1930s and letters from Calcutta to Liverpool

By Gurbir Dated: March 8, 2020 3 Comments

Stephen Smith with two of his rockets. Sikkim 1935, Credit Leslie Johnson

I came across the Liverpool/Calcutta connection during my research into the life and work of Stephen H Smith. During 1934 and 1944, Smith undertook around 300 rocket experiments to demonstrate the utility of a rocket to transport mail, medicines, food and living creatures. Similar experiments were being conducted in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and the USA, but in India, for over a decade it was just Smith.

The British Interplanetary Society had been founded in Liverpool in 1933. Smith conducted his first rocket experiments in September 1934 and it was published in the BIS Bulletin in November 1934. Smith in Calcutta joined the BIS around this time and established regular correspondence with the Leslie Johnson, the BIS secretary, in Liverpool. Johnson’s daughter still has a file of letters Smith sent from Calcutta to Liverpool in the late 1930s.

My book (India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer) will be published by the end of March 2020 and contains many pictures of Smith, his rockets and quotes from his letters. Some from the Johnson collection but other sources too.I could not include many in the book – so I am sharing some more here. Click on any of the images below to open the gallery viewer.


  • Smith conducted his first rocket mail experiment on 30 September 1934. It appeared in the November 1934 issue of the BIS Bulletin.
    Credit National Air and Space Museum. Washington DC

  • In the early 1930s, the founders of  nascent rocketry societies (Phil Cleator of the BIS in UK and Edward Pendray of the AIS in USA) were swapping notes on the work on rocketry being conducted by Smith and Goddard. Goddard’s contribution was incomparable to that of Smith’s.
    3 April 1936  From Phil Cleater to Edward Pendray.  Credit National Air and Space Museum. Washington DC 

  • To help raise funds and raise the BIS profile, members could purchase BIS headed paper to use as “Member’s correspondence”. Smith used it widely especially when communicating with the media to assert his credentials. He also used it to write one of his many letters to Leslie Johnson in Liverpool.
    29 September 1937 Members Correspondence with BIS logo. Credit Leslie Johnson

  • Stephen Smith (sitting bottom left) in Calcutta with a mostly obscured rocket launch frame for his rockets behind him. 
    22 July 1938.  Credit Ramu M Srinivasa

  • Soon after the BIS was founded in Liverpool, the Manchester Interplanetary Society was established in nearby Manchester. Headed by Eric Burgess, it did not last long and was later subsumed in to the BIS when it was reformed after the World War II in London. The MIS was just as ambitius as the BIS and published a journal called The Astronaut. 
    August 1938 – Manchester Interplanetary Society’s journal – The Astronaut.  Credit National Air and Space Museum. Washington DC.

  •  7 November 1949. Stephen Smith to Robert Paganini. Transcript below.

    “You may mention that I have been working on these tests for over 12 years  and that my work and experiments were increasingly more and (more) until the war when the military wrote to me on numerous occasions for aid. Tell him that I was India’s Pioneer Rocket experimenter and that I am an Indian by birth, having been born in Shillong, Assam. You may mention that I have done work in the Himalayas and that my efforts have been recognised  in the USA and the whole of Europe and yet I’m the land of my birth I am ignored and last though not least, thousands of my rocket mail letters, cards and stamps are scattered around the world. If his excellency the governor, Dr Katju should be interested he should send for me for a private discussion on a field of experiments now occupying the world.  Thank you my good friend, thank you a thousand times and god bless you for your great kindness to me.” 
    7 November 1949. Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland.

  •   2 March 1950 From Stephen Smith to Robert Paganini
     Smith complaining that he has not received a response from any senior politicians including Prime Minister Nehru. “I have not heard a line from H.E. Dr Katju or Dr B. L Roy or Pandit Nehru. They will not have anything to do with anyone, except one who is an India. This is life.” 
      2 March 1950 Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland. 

  • Smith hints at an “offer of his services” but cannot tell anyone.
    6 April 1946 from Stephen Smith to Robert Paganini
    . Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland

  • Extract from Robert Paganini’s will. Paganini died on 6 December 1950. He left a quarter of his estate to Stephen Smith – someone he had never met. Smith himself died three months later.
    Credit Robert Paganini collection. Museum of Communication, Bern Switzerland. 

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