French aviation pioneer. Born in Paris on May 26, 1874, the son of an English journalist, he was trained as a painter at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but his interest shifted to cycling and he achieved some prominence as a champion bicycle racer. After a successful career as a manufacturer of bicycles and then motor cars, he devoted his attention to airplanes.

Henry (Henri) and Maurice Farman (right) c.1908

With his brother Maurice Alain Farman (Mar. 21, 1877 - Feb. 25, 1964) he modified a Voisin pusher biplane. In that year he made a flight from Bonny to Reims. In 1909 he set world's endurance and speed records. As early as 1908 Henry Farman had a school of aviation and construction works at Buc near Versailles. Somewhat later Maurice Farman began to manufacture aircraft and in 1912 the brothers merged their interests in the Farman works at Boulogne-sur-Seine, making many planes of their characteristic pusher biplane type for military and training purposes.

The 1914 model was extensively used for artillery observation and reconnaissance in World War I. The Farman Goliath was the first long-distance passenger airliner, beginning regular Paris-London flights on February 8, 1919. In 1932 Henry Farman developed a new Farman monoplane, in which he hoped to ascend to the stratosphere. He was unsuccessful, but his observations from this type of experimentation contributed to later high-altitude aviation developments.

Farman-type planes derived from the Voisin machine of 1908, which depended on inherent stability for lateral control; the landing gear had wheels. After the Wright brothers' public flights in 1908 first disclosed wing warping for latereral control, Farman machines adopted ailerons, a simpler aerodynamic equivalent; the Wright machines adopted wheels. Subsequently ailerons and wheeled landing gear came into general use on all planes. Henry Farman was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1919 and retired a naturalized french citzen in 1937, when the French aircraft industry was nationalized He died in Paris on July 18, 1958.