The great-great niece of aviation pioneers the Short brothers is appealing for a final £2,800 to restore their graves in Hampstead Cemetery.
Horace, Eustace and Oswald Short were inventors, balloonists, aeronautical engineers and manufacturers, who set up England's first powered aircraft factory in 1909 with a licence to make the Wright brothers' 'Flyers'.
Their factories went on to design and make airships, biplanes, First and Second World War bombers - including the first plane to drop a torpedo at the battle of Gallipoli - and flying boats such as the famous Sunderland.
Liz Walker and The Short Brothers Commemoration Society commissioned renovation work on Horace and Eustace's crumbling kerbstone graves in the Fortune Green Road burial ground. They are in a prominent place near the chapel, but the stones had sunk - possibly because cars have driven over them - and the writing was no longer legible.
Horace is in one grave with mother Emma and sister Alice, who lived in Ranulf Road, while Eustace, of Hampstead Gardens, Golders Green is in the other with eight-year-old daughter Grace Olga, who died in an accident when the car he was driving hit a tram stop.
"The graves were in a terrible state," said Walker. "We raised funds to restore them but when the stonemaker came to carry out the work it showed the damage was worse than expected."
The Society now need to raise further funds for two concrete landings or foundation slabs to underpin the graves.
"We would appreciate donations to finish the work on these historically important monuments, to give these brilliant brothers the respect and recognition of the contribution they made to aviation."
The society has already raised funds to restore the Sussex grave of third brother Oswald, who lived in Templewood Gardens, Hampstead until 1935.
Walker fears their "enormous contribution" to design and manufacture of early aircraft has been largely forgotten, but says re-leading the letters on Horace and Eustace's graves will "make it possible to tell their story." She encourages locals to visit the graves and perhaps donate.
Speaking to the Ham&High last year she said: "They had no money. They were working class lads who did very well for themselves. Eustace was the practical one who did the flying, Horace was the designer, and Oswald the businessmen, they really complemented each other."
The three brothers bought Emma the house in Ranulf Road near the cemetery in 1916, and she lived there until 1934.
"By the time she died in 1936 she had buried two sons a daughter and a grand-daughter. How sad is that?"
Donations to restore the graves at https://www.gofundme.com/f/short-brothers-aviators-graves-restoration
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