Charles Stewart Rolls and Cecil Stanley Grace were two of Britain’s famed early aviators who, commencing in 1909, carried out much of their pioneering flying on the Isle of Sheppey and were members of the royal aero club which had its flying ground at Eastchurch. Although distinguished, their flying activities would be relatively short.

Charles rolls, one of the Rolls Royce automobile manufacturing partnership, was killed at Bournemouth on 12th July 1910, during a spot of landing contest. He had flown towards the landing circle in the teeth of a strong breeze and with his manoeuvring space restricted by the need to bank over a grandstand then land as near as possible to the given mark, had approached the circle in a deep dive. At 70 feet he pulled the elevator over for a sharp climb. There was a sharp crack as his stabilising tail-plane suddenly parted and the aircraft fell vertically out of control striking the ground. Rolls was killed instantly, the first fatality to occur among Britain’s flying fraternity.

A few months later it was Cecil Grace's turn to meet his fate. In an attempt to win the Baron de Forest prize of £4,000 to the British pilot who had flown the furthest non-stop into Europe by the end of the year, he took off from Dover in December 1910. In order to save the weight and fuel he had discarded flotation bags designed in case a forced landing had to be made while over the sea. He also abandoned his compass as being unreliable. Crossing the channel he was obliged to land at Las Baraques near Calais because of a bit of mist which was drastically reducing visibility. Grace decided that he would fly back to Dover and commence a second attempt. Setting a course by the sun he headed out for Dover in deteriorating visibility, unknowingly assuming a flight path too far North which led him several miles seaward of North Foreland. Neither he nor his machine was ever seen again, though his cap and goggles were washed in at Mariakerk on the Belgian coastline several days later. By his death, on 22nd December, he became known as the second British pilot to have been killed in an air accident.

Two years after their deaths a stained glass memorial window to Charles Rolls and Cecil Grace was set in the southern wall of All Saints’ Church at Eastchurch. The window was the work of Karl Parsons by whom it was both designed and made. One of his previous commissions had been for the production of most of the windows for the Cape Town Cathedral in South Africa. The twin-light window depicted two full length female figures. That in the left-had light represented ‘Hope’ and was depicted holding a shield in the left hand and a broken sword in the right. The figure on the right-hand side, ‘Fortitude’ was shown chained by the left wrist to a prison wall and holding a branch of a flowering shrub. Spanning the width of the window underneath the two figures was the legend: “Having done all to stand turn ye to the stronghold ye prisoners of hope". Across the bottom of the window below this was placed the inscription “To the Glory of God and in memory of Charles Stewart Rolls & Cecil Stanley Grace, Aviators, July-December 1910. This window is given by friends A.D. 1912."

The ceremony of unveiling the memorial window to the late aviators was performed at noon on Saturday 27 July 1912 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall T. Davidson, assisted by Archdeacon H. Maxwell Spooner and the Rev. Henry E.T. Cruso, Rural Dean, the Churchwardens H.C. Warren and Alfred Boorman in attendance. The Archbishop had arrived at Eastchurch for the ceremony shortly after eleven o’clock in the morning, having travelled down from London by the Flushing mail train, on which were also a number of distinguished members from the Royal Aero Club who were coming down for the service. Boy Scouts kept the path from the Rectory to the Church until the Archbishop’s procession had gone in and then followed immediately behind in the chancel.