Royal Naval Air Service Officer's Commission Document (inscribed "By the Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. / To Mr. Charles Torryburn Brimerm hereby appointed Flight Sub-Lieutenant in His Majesty's Navy / By Virtue of the Power and Authority to us given by His Majesty's Letters Patent under the Great Seal. We do hereby constitute and appoint you a Flight Sub-Lieutenant in His Majesty's Navy Willing and requiring you to take upon you the Charge and Command of Flight Sub-Lieutenant of the Charge and Command of any higher rank to which you may be promoted the same being notified to you by us and Gazetted. Strictly Charged and Commanding all the Officers and men of the Royal Naval Air Service subordinate to you to behave themselves jointly and severally in their respective Employments, with all due Respect and Obedience unto you, and you likewise to observe and execute the General Printed Instructions and such Orders and Directions as you shall from time to time receive from us or any other your Superior Officers for His Majesty's Service. Hereof nor you, nor any of you, may fail as you will answer the contrary at your Peril. And for so doing this shall be your Commission. Given under our hands and the Seal of the Office of Admiralty this ninth day of November 1916 in the Seventh Year of His Majesty's Reign. / By Command / With Seniority of 7th June 1916. / With effect while holding an appointment as an Officer of the Royal Naval Air Service.", with four original signatures in faded black ink including that of King George V, with embossed stamp of the Admiralty, printed in black ink on a white paper stock, encased under glass in a 325 mm x 380 mm wooden frame, four holes in the frame for wall-mounting); First War Memorial Scroll (inscribed "Flight Sub. Lt. Charles Torryburn Brimer R.N.", printed in four-colour inks on a thick cream-coloured paper stock, 182 mm x 283 mm); Photograph of Brimer and Aircraft (black and white, matte finish, illustrating Brimer sitting in the cockpit of a two-seater Bi-Plane, 163 mm x 247 mm, cardboard mounted); Portrait Photograph (black and white, matte finish, illustrating Brimer in his Royal Naval Air Service dress uniform, in an outdoor setting, standing beside a rail fence, 127 mm x 249 mm image, wooden matted, encased under glass in a 237 mm x 155 mm wooden frame, inscribed in blue ink "Charles Torryburn Brimer / BORN - Dec 6 - 1897. / Missing Dec 4 - 1916" on the papered reverse); Studio Portrait (black and white, matte finish, illustrating Brimer in his Royal Naval Air Service dress uniform, inscribed in black ink "Your Loving Son Charlie / Flight Lieut. R.N." at the lower right, 83 mm x 135 mm, postcard backer); six Photographs Taken While Pilot Training in the United States (black and white, matte finish, 70 mm x 115 mm each); three Photograph Postcards (black and white, matte finish, sent by Brimer to his mother while he was pilot training at Newport News, Virginia, 87 mm x 13 mm each, postcard backers, with handwritten messages and addressed, each with a postmarked one cent U.S. stamp); three Photographs of French Seaplanes (black and white, one of which has faded to a sepia-toned look, matte finish, 87 mm x 138 mm each, postcard backers); Memorial Card (photo of Brimer with the inscription "FLIGHT SUB-LIEUT. CHARLES T. BRIMER, R.N. OF TORONTO, CANADA / MISSING DECEMBER 4th, 1916, AT AGE OF NINETEEN WHILE FLYING OVER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL FROM THE ISLE OF WIGHT." below, printed in black ink on a thin white paper stock, 7 mm x 111 mm); along with a Newspaper Photograph and Article. Extremely fine.
Footnote: Charles Torryburn Brimer was born on December 6, 1897 in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Charles Oakly Brimer and Mary Bow Brimer. He resided at 323 Markham Street in Toronto and was educated in Toronto, graduating from Harbord Collegiate Institute. Brimer went to Newport News, Virginia, United States, to learn to be a pilot and it was here that he received Aviation Certificate #491, granted by the Aero Club of America at the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station Curtis School, on May 17, 1916. He received his certificate before he applied to the Royal Naval Air Service, which he entered as a Temporary Probationary Flight Sub-Lieutenant. He was later named Temporary Flight Sub-Lieutenant on June 7, 1916, the announcement appearing in the London Gazette 29822 of Tuesday, November 14, 1916, page 10967 and in Flight Magazine of Thursday, July 6, 1916. He sailed for England aboard the S.S. Cassandra from Montreal, Quebec on June 14, 1916, where he was stationed at Bembridge on the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight, flying FBA type flying boats. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Charles Torryburn Brimer, Royal Naval Air Service was aboard Flying Boat #3639 on December 4, 1916, when he was initially declared "missing" from afternoon patrol, while flying over the English Channel from the Isle of Wight. He was later presumed drowned, his death coming two days before his nineteenth birthday. In a twist of fate, he had written a letter, that was received by his parents after he had been reported missing to them, informing them of his qualification for a commission in the R.N.A.S at the head of his class. In a period newspaper article detailing his death, it stated that Brimer's father, "Mr. Charles O. Brimer, of the Provincial Audit Office, has received a letter from Right Hon. Sir Frederick Ponsonby, Keeper of the King's Privy Purse, expressing the sympathy of their Majesties aviator, who is supposed to have been lost while on Channel patrol last December and has now been officially declared dead.", followed by the contents of the letter itself. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Charles Torryburn Brimer, Royal Naval Air Service is remembered with honour on the Chatham Naval Memorial, Chatham, Kent, United Kingdom, Panel 18 and is commemorated on page 570 of the First World War Book of Remembrance.(C:45)