Artist, Aviation Pioneer. He received notoriety as an English painter and illustrator, who was very prolific from 1895 to 1899 and can be found on display in museums throughout Europe. Piffard painted a wide variety of subjects in both oils and watercolors: Battlefields with soldiers, portraits of historical figures, still life, and gathering of people doing everyday tasks. As a source of income, he started his work as an illustrator with contributions to periodicals including “The Strand Magazine,” “The Illustrated London News,” and “The Pictorial Magazine. In 1895 he began to illustrate books, eventually illustrating over a hundred novels by authors including George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Richard Marsh, Max Pemberton, Guy Boothby and others. His most well-known oil on canvas depicts the Second Siege of the Spanish City of Zaragoza during the Peninsular War ending on February 20, 1809. The painting details the brutality of the suffering by the Spanish at the hands of the French army with a vivid image of a cathedral being captured, gun-smoke-filled interiors, and French soldiers trampling Spanish Roman Catholic priests to the floor. Today, his most valuable piece would be the oil painting “The Signing of the Armistice, November 11, 1918,” which is estimated at a worth between $15,000 to $20,000 for a numbered reproduction. The original painting is in a private collection after being purchased for an unknown price at a 2017 auction in Detroit, Michigan. Besides being an artist, he held an interest in aviation. While at his artist studio in Bedford Park in London, he began in 1907 to make model aircraft, receiving a prize for them at Olympia in 1909. At this point, he began to fly, designing his own aircraft by using an 8-cylinder 40 horsepower ENV “D” engine and building the airframe in his studio. He was co-founder of the Aviator's Finance Company. From September of 1909, he tested his bi-plane aircraft in a nearby field. He was successful in that he did get the aircraft airborne for “a foot or two from ground for a distance of 100 yards.” A photographer at the scene filmed this fly and remarked how dangerous it was to attempt to fly. On December of 1909, his hangar with the aircraft was destroyed in a storm. On May 3, 1910 his second flight in his “Hummingbird” was somewhat successful, hopping across the field before crashing in a hole hiding by tall grass. In September of 1910 he flew at a height up to 40 feet for about a half of a mile. In 1911, he unsuccessfully tested his new aircraft, the “Piffard Hydroplane.” He never tried again. In 2007 the Shoreham Airport Historical Association built a replica of his “Hummingbird.” He was the youngest son of six children of a barrister and Clerk of the Crown in the High Court at Calcutta, India. Some sources state he was born in India while others England; his father was born in India and had strong ties there. As a young man, he left school with the notion of becoming an actor in London. In 1889 he began studying art at the Royal Academy Schools, and he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy in 1895. While in India, “Piff,” as he was known, traveled and after he had exhibited his pieces in London, worked on a tea plantation. He attended Lancing College and studied art in Paris, France. He exhibited on two other occasions at the Royal Academy as well as exhibiting at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool and The Royal Society of British Artists in Birmingham. Having a total of five children, he is buried with his first wife, their infant son, and his only child, an adult son, who was born to his second wife.