Harold Hume Piffard was a British artist and illustrator, and one of the first British aviators.
Harold Piffard was born in Marylebone to Charles Piffard (4 July 1829 – 2 July 1884 and his wife Emily, née Hume (1837 – 1911), the daughter of James Hume, a barrister and Magistrate at Calcutta. They had married in Calcutta on 1 June 1858. Charles had received his BA at Clare College, Cambridge in 1848,, was called to the Bar on 17 November 1854, and was awarded an MA from Clare College on 30 June 1856. Charles was Clerk of the Crown in the High Court of Calcutta. Piffard's four eldest brothers had all been born in India.
Piffard was the couple's sixth son. He was educated at Lancing College, being sent there together with his older brother Lawrence in 1877 He was still there at the time of the 1881 census. A year earlier he had run away from school to find employment on the stage, sleeping on the Embankment for several nights while he visited theatres and music halls. He travelled to India in February 1884 then spent some time travelling in India and working on a tea plantation. In 1889 he returned to London and began to study art at the Royal Academy Schools, and he exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy in 1895. His address was then 5 Fitzroy Square, St Pancras.
A month later, on 4 June 1895, he married Helena Katherine Docetti Walker (1 August 1871 – 27 November 1900), the Daughter of Peter Geddes Walker (13 December 1833 – 28 May 1896), a Jute Manufacturer and naturalised German Margaretha (Meta) Docetti (c. 1837 – 19 October 1897) at St John's Free Church in Dundee. At the time of his marriage his address was 29 Cambridge Avenue, Maida Vale, North London. He was at the same address a year later in August 1896 when he was burgled. However, the 1899 Electoral register shows him living at 18 Addison Road, Bedford Park, Chiswick, London, where he remained until he died