William Beamisch was the son of an Irish Brewer who ran the well-known brewery Beamisch & Crawford in Cork. He lived in Thonon-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie) and was trained as a pilot in 1910 in nearby Viry. In the summer he bought a Dufaux 5-seater plane, but it didn’t work properly so he sold the plane before the end of the year. For private reasons, Beamisch fought a duel with a member of the family of the Count Viry leaving both of them injured. He later followed his father to the Gouffre de Padirac, a cave in the Lot département, managing the operating company from 1937 until his death in 1969. He was also the mayor of Padirac for several years.
France