The Man With His Head in the Clouds

by Richard O. Smith

  There was a problem, however. With the 1pm take-off time approaching, a persistent breeze was blowing directly from the east. This meant that any ascent would see the balloon inevitably drift due westwards and straight over the perilous Bristol Channel. Also, it was reported the next day that Sadler had intended to take his daughter up with him, but such was the threat of being blown over the sea that he steadfastly resisted his daughter’s entreaties. Her place was willingly taken by a Mr. Clayfield of Bristol who, if considered more expendable than Sadler’s daughter, nevertheless reasoned that Sadler himself planned to continue with the flight.

  News of a potential postponement had filtered through to the 10,000 crowd, and history had shown that postponing balloon flights often resulted in disorder or, more likely, a full-blown riot. “Mr Sadler declared that if he should veer to the West then we would not venture, from an apprehension that he might drop in the sea.” This is a perfectly reasonably apprehension in most people’s books, but “great fears of a disappointment generally prevailed”.

  Then at 1.35pm, only five minutes after the intended take-off, Sadler noticed a distinct change in the wind direction now blowing from the north-east. Hence Sadler “accompanied by a gentleman amateur”, the distinguished chemist William Clayfield, lifted off, passing over Bristol (where he repeated his crowd-pleasing though not RSPCA-pleasing trick of parachuting a cat, this time whilst over Redcliffe) en route to Exeter. The parachuting moggy narrowly missed being impaled on the sharp spire of St. Mary’s Parish Church.

  After travelling just over a mile, Sadler performed his customary and popular act of throwing some letters overboard - the earliest form of airmail - and then continued on a south-western route. But Exeter was never to be reached, because a problem struck the intrepid duo. The wind, as quickly as it had changed direction earlier, suddenly blew back from the east, ensuring that the balloon was now full steam ahead for the Bristol Channel - hardly a safe landing place. Rather than initiating an immediate landing Sadler threw out ballast and raised the balloon even higher. Although a somewhat reckless tactic, it averted disaster as Sadler discovered another current, which now blew him directly northwards towards Wales.

  However, the change of wind direction was short-lived, and travelling at a disturbing velocity, Sadler was blown back onto a south-western course. By about 4.15pm he was observed six miles off the North Devon coast at Lynmouth, losing altitude quickly.

  The Caledonian Mercury of 1 October 1810 mentioned: “a favourite barometer given to Mr Sadler by the famous Dr Johnson for which he [Sadler] had been offered 200 guineas.” That was the last, and thus we can comfortably deduce, most cherished object Sadler jettisoned on this watery flight. Even parts of the balloon’s cart were ripped off and hurled into the sea. With the towering cliffs of Combe Martin approaching, they were certainly provided with a motive to restore height as quickly as possible. First they scraped the cliff tops. Then, sure enough, they plopped into the Bristol Channel.

  Sadler and companion remained in the water for nearly an hour, with the partially inflated balloon acting as both a marker buoy for the boat that eventually rescued them, but also as a sail blowing them along the Bristol Channel. “A boat was launched instantly, and the voyagers were brought ashore in a state of extreme fatigue and Mr Sadler was unable to stand for having been in the water for some time before the boat was able to reach him.” The paper added: “it was by mere accident that the balloon was observed to fall into the sea, and had it not been a remarkably serene evening, the parties must have inevitably perished.” In panic, a shivering Sadler and Clayfield had dispensed with everything they could find to regain altitude, even lobbing their great coats overboard. Sure enough, Sadler confirmed that the treasured barometer had been the last item to be discarded.

  2 JULY 1811: CAMBRIDGE

  Sadler seemingly had no trouble securing the best venues for his ascents, as evidenced by Cambridge University’s decision to allow him to mark the installation of Lord Gloucester as the University’s Chancellor by taking off from the grandest of college courts: the Great Court at Trinity College.

  Lord Byron had left Trinity only four years previously, and often used the fountain in the centre of the court to provide his pet bear with a daily wash. When asked why he kept a live bear in his college room, Byron replied that he intended to have the bear elected as a Fellow of the college. Later Byron, dressed only in a full-size bear skin complete with head, went to fight in the Greek Civil War. Unsurprisingly, that did not work out well.

  Arguably putting himself in equal danger, Sadler attempted to fly from Trinity’s Great Court in a stiff afternoon breeze. His publicly stated intention had been to fly with his daughter, described by one newspaper as “an interesting little girl, only fourteen years of age”. Yet an increasing wind ensured he had to play the role of a protective father and again forbid her ascent. This was the second occasion that her planned debut as an aeronaut suffered a weather postponement. The press do not note any resultant teenage tantrums. Instead, he offered a vacant seat to the highest bidder - Lieutenant Paget of the Royal Navy offering the colossal sum of 100 guineas to ascend in conditions considered far too dangerous for Sadler’s family members. Paget was spared too, however, his corpulent frame making the balloon too heavy to achieve lift-off, and the pathological pork-pie eater had to heave his wide-girthed frame back out of the basket “with some reluctance at 20 minutes past 2 o’clock”. Sensing worsening weather conditions with light rain and winds increasing from the north-east, Sadler opted to fly solo.

  With the twenty restraining ropes removed, Sadler quickly gained the required height to clear the college buildings and soared above King’s College Chapel, enthusiastically waving his hat to acknowledge the crowd’s acclamations. Unfortunately, the weather being overcast with light rain, Sadler soon disappeared into dark grey cloud, remaining in view for less than two minutes to his immense ground-dwelling audience, and withdrew “from view of the spectators with as much quickness as the curtain falls upon an interesting scene of a play,” as one contemporary observer chose to phrase it.

  Dr. Johnson’s precious barometer having been lost to the sea in his previous flight, Sadler consulted his replacement to calculate that the cloud was nearly a mile thick. Eventually emerging at high altitude on a splendid sunlit day above the cloud, he surmised that his velocity in a high wind was precariously fast, and that soon he would be over open sea. He started to valve the balloon, and plan a descent.

  His navigational instincts were correct, and he attempted to land in Essex a few miles from the coast. Throwing out his grappling iron was unsuccessful, and the balloon bounced back off a copse, dragging the basket across a barley field. A thick hedge served to catch the balloon basket, giving Sadler some rough treatment in the process. The envelope became caught in a tree, causing substantial damage to the balloon - the same one that had crashed into the Bristol Channel on his previous outing. Again, Sadler was extremely fortune to have escaped with relatively minor injuries. His decision to spare his daughter from the experience could well have saved her life.

  It is almost impossible to differentiate between Sadler and his sons in reports of the age, so no one is categorically sure how many flights Sadler senior accomplished. The Bury and Norwich Post reported that he had accompanied fifteen fights prior to Cambridge, but others report it as the sixteenth or eighteenth. We do know that Sadler exhibited the balloon at Cambridge Town Hall for several days before his Trinity College ascent, raising money towards its construction by charging one shilling admission. Posters and leaflets were distributed around East Anglia, and advertisements printed in the local press, all proclaiming: “Mr Sadler respectfully informs the nobility and gentry, and the public in general that HIS SUPERB BALLOON and GRAND CART are now exhibiting at the Town Hall.”

  Clearly with debts to pay, Sadler appeared to be running a more financially efficient operation on his return, as proven
by his decision to charge a hefty five shillings to gain entrance to the Grand Court to witness the ascent - and risk a mauling from Byron’s bear.

  12 AUGUST 1811: HACKNEY

  Somehow Sadler managed to repair the balloon after its violent, tree-tangled crash landing following the Cambridge ascent. One suspects his balloon was more patches than original envelope. But the cart was irreparable, having splintered into sawdust.

  Therefore, with a brand-new wooden cart aboard, Sadler next organised a London launch - the first balloon flight in the capital for several years. Taking off from the garden of the Mermaid Tavern, “so well known as the scene of political meetings”, in East London, his strikingly ornate basket made its flight debut. The cart, it is fair to say, was a hit - at least according to contemporary newspaper reports: “Its beauty and brilliance drew forth an involuntary burst of applause.” In retrospect, this could just have been an outpouring of relief after a four-hour wait.

  Draped with bright yellow silk and matching cushions, crimson velvet and azure blue cloth festooned with satin and gold braid spelt out a message to celebrate the Prince Regent’s birthday, alongside an emblem of the Prince of Wales’ emblematic feathers “in a triple plume in gold”. It was “one of the most superb objects it is possible for ingenuity of man to devise, or which the fancy of the spectator could hope to see realised!” stated The Morning Post the next day, with a diminishing grip on perspective.

  The first Hackney ascent, 12 August 1811, Sadler on left (Wikipedia Commons)

  It was presumably a cart of lighter construction than its predecessor because this time Lieutenant Paget was able to be raised by the considerable pulling power of several tons of hydrogen. But the funnelling of the hydrogen into the balloon stretched the patience of the crowd long before it stretched the balloon frame. Commencing at 9am, the balloon was not sufficiently inflated to be airborne until 2.30pm. Soon afterwards the pair ascended. “The airy travellers were in sight for about a quarter of an hour.” Packing life jackets, ballast and grappling irons for landing, they also had on board two huge bright purple flags: “Bearing the coats of arms of his Highness of the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Hardwicke which they continued to wave as they pursued their trackless path, in grateful testimony to the reiterated shouts and plaudits of the innumerable spectators,” gushed The Times.

  Sadler’s appeal was undimmed, with the public showing no signs of rejecting ballooning as a fad. Roads to Hackney were thronged with people and carriages representative of all classes. By mid-morning some of the main access roads were reportedly as completely blocked.

  Proving that Sadler meant business these days, he had organised a perimeter fence, and admission was controlled by the Tower Hamlets Militia. Three thousand paying customers patiently waited the four hours for the balloon to fill with barrelled hydrogen.

  The performance was certainly showbiz by this stage of Sadler’s comeback career. When the balloon was fully inflated, and ballast had been placed in the cart by his crew, Sadler emerged from the corner of the gardens dressed sveltely all in black. He then proceeded to walk to the roped cart like a boxer approaching the ring, soaking up the audience’s affection and spontaneous applause. Once installed, he gave the signal for all thirty rope-bearers to release their grip, and Sadler climbed clear above the surrounding trees to widening applause.

  Not for the first time, however, Sadler had chosen a date with deteriorating weather conditions. With a breeze picking up strongly, he was blown back and forth over the Thames, crossing the East India Docks twice. After an hour and a quarter in the air, the balloon hit the ground at Tilbury Fort in Essex close to the Thames estuary. Attempting to land in what had become a gale was predictably fraught, and after bouncing along the ground Sadler’s flying companion Paget was thrown out of the balloon. Fortunately he grasped the side, and remarkably only sustained minor injuries. But once again, the injuries to the balloon envelope were anything but minor.

  29 AUGUST 1811: MERMAID TAVERN II

  Nietzsche once suggested that doing something exactly the same as before, but expecting a different outcome each time, is a definition of insanity. Quite how mentally unstable Sadler was becoming after far too many bumpy landings is a matter for speculation, but after his latest crash he decided two weeks later to... that’s right - take another flight from the same location. This may have been organised as a consequence of the scramble for places a fortnight earlier, with huge numbers struggling to see the first flight. Although 3,000 spectators were reported present at the first fight from the Mermaid’s gardens, this was a relatively small-scale audience by Sadler’s standards. Thus more money was to be taken at the box office by adding a sequel.

  A popular cartoonish image in the style of Hogarth was circulated soon after Sadler’s first Mermaid Tavern flight. Titled “Prime Bang up at Hackney or a Peep at the Balloon”, it depicts the riotous chaos that ensued when a plebeian crowd assembled, smitten with balloonomania and shoving for a glimpse of Sadler’s elevation.

  “Prime Bang up at Hackney” (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

  One of William Hogarth’s paintings - indeed, arguably the artist’s most famous work - was to profoundly influence the life of Sadler’s co-pilot for his flight on 29 August 1811. Presumably stumping up a huge asking price to accompany Sadler in the basket - likely to have been over 100 guineas - was Henry Benjamin Hanbury Beaufoy.

  He was the local MP, representing the constituency of Hackney Wick, and owned a vinegar distillery in South Lambeth after reportedly seeing Hogarth’s notorious print Gin Lane and deciding to switch from distilling ruinous gin to vinegar. Beaufoy was charitably minded, founding no fewer than four Cambridge University scholarships. He donated considerable sums to education - £10,000 to the City of London School alone, and £14,000 to established “ragged schools” in Lambeth. He compiled a personal library with over 25,000 titles including four copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio. But the probable reason why Sadler and Beaufoy were brought together was a shared interest in the advancement of rifle barrels - both had undertaken published research on the subject. During his ascent with Sadler, Beaufoy maintained a log recording his observations, thoughts and physical sensations during every minute of the flight.

  This time the prevailing wind blew in the same direction as a fortnight previously, although mercifully with no gale, and it took Sadler to Essex again. The pair landed safely at Easthorpe a few miles west of Colchester.

  7 OCTOBER 1811: BIRMINGHAM TO ASGARBY

  In a precursor to a stunt from Jackass the Movie, Sadler took off from Vauxhall Gardens in Birmingham in a force 6 gale. This enabled him to travel to south-east Lincolnshire at an average speed of around 84mph - thereby making him probably the fastest human being in history up to this point - at least the fastest to have survived mainly intact. Such recklessness was shared with his unfortunate co-traveller, a young gentleman John Burcham of Dereham, Norfolk, described as “polite and intelligent” - though not sufficiently intelligent to avoid flying in a hydrogen balloon during a howling gale.

  The launch site attracted the customary crowds genuflecting to Sadler’s celebrity status. “An irresistible point of attraction to all ranks of people,” was how the Birmingham Gazette neatly defined his appeal in 1811. Sadler’s ascent was greeted by cheering multitudes with several spectators firing guns. Not that small arms fire was anything like as dangerous as what Sadler was about to face: a blowing gale.

  Waving both his flags to salute the crowd as he took off, the wind soon snatched them from his hands and they fell to earth. The balloon was presently whipped away by the winds and soared like a comet towards the east coast of Britain, passing above Lichfield, Coventry, Tamworth and Leicester before reaching Lincolnshire almost within an hour of departing Birmingham at 2pm that afternoon. Burcham later stated that they were at their highest point of elevation above Market Deeping, with Sadler’s instruments showing an alt
itude of 2.5 miles, which enabled them to see Peterborough, Wisbech and Crowland from their basket’s vantage-point.

  With 200lbs of ballast aboard, the foolhardy duo were able to lose height quickly, as Sadler realised that the Wash was looming ominously into view on the horizon. They duly reduced altitude as quickly as possible to avoid the cold waters of the North Sea, but their speed was still worrisome.

  It was Sadler’s unfortunate passenger Burcham who provided a practical experiment of Newtonian physics (appropriate, as Lincolnshire was Isaac Newton’s home county). He ably proved the theory of moving forces by piloting his balloon straight into an ash tree. Narrowly missing a tall church spire in Asgarby, the balloon hit the tree at speed, upturning the basket and returning Burcham roughly to earth. Completing his journey of 112 miles in just over an hour, Sadler was thrown from the basket separately, in the Lincolnshire hamlet of Burton Pedwardine, located a few miles further south. Although he sustained inevitable injuries in the process, this arboreal encounter undisputedly saved his life as the impact shook him clear of the basket seconds before the hydrogen-filled balloon surged upwards again to be last seen heading for the North Sea.

  Today Asgarby is barely a hamlet, a scattered handful of buildings. There is a sole building on one side of the “main” street, the out-of-context, splendidly tall-towered Church of St. Andrew. This thirteenth-century parish church, restored in 1870, is a Grade One listed building. There is still an ash tree in the hamlet today, perhaps a direct descendant of the tree that saved Burcham’s life by temporarily entangling the balloon, allowing him to jump out. Such was the violence of the storm that “the silk of the balloon hung around an ash tree in the most extraordinary way, tearing itself amongst the branches and tearing itself into a thousand pieces.” (Quite a descriptive account, although the thousand pieces managed to re-ascend immediately in the strong winds and soar across the Wash and into the North Sea...)