The Man With His Head in the Clouds

by Richard O. Smith

  Dead on the hour, the University Church of St. Mary in Oxford’s High Street struck one o’clock - the timing was important for subsequent calculations. Sadler’s balloon ascended almost directly vertically. Fortunately its trajectory was recorded. At a height “of about 100 yards it was amidst the clouds”. The day must have offered good visibility, as the balloon was later reported as being “perfectly visible for 7 miles” from the Oxford launch site once it had passed through broken cloud.

  Speculation abounded that the globe fell in Lincolnshire. The newspaper correspondent concludes by enthusing: “The singular and wonderful experiment is allowed to be the most complete of the kind ever exhibited in this kingdom, if not in Europe, and was executed by the ingenious Mr James Sadler of this city, who received the warmest congratulations from the whole University to whom, in general, he gave the utmost satisfaction.”

  Regrettably this warm relationship with the University would later cool, as both sides returned to their encamped Town and Gown trenches.

  Sadler’s test balloon landed at 4pm that same afternoon at Stansted in Essex. It had travelled an impressive 79 miles. Only eight minutes after the recorded take-off time, the balloon had been sighted over Wootton, in Buckinghamshire. Far-sightedly, the observer had the presence of mind to record the exact time, realising that this might be significant for subsequent calculations. Thus, by plotting the co-ordinates of both the take-off and observer’s position eight minutes after the launch, calculating speed at the distance of sixteen miles distance is er, er, I can do this... just a bit longer... around 100mph. Which is an astonishing twenty-first century speed attained in the eighteenth century, when the fastest people could reasonably have expected to travel was probably limited by how fast a horse could gallop.

  Spotted in several parts of Northamptonshire, it was possible to chart the balloon’s progress heading in a north-easterly direction: “and upon a moderate computation [it] travelled upwards of 200 miles in the space of two hours and a half.” Damage incurred in the flight was also reported with a tear visible in the one of the seams. Speculation at the time suggested that it was “burnt by the expansion of internal air, or otherwise it certainly would have gone a much greater distance”.

  A few days later the balloon was retrieved in Wrotham, Kent.

  The scale of Sadler’s 1784 creation and ambition was eventually revealed in the form of a monster 170-foot diameter balloon with a capacity of 38,792 cubic feet. It is worth reiterating that an apparently little-educated pastry cook had designed and built this vast craft capable of remaining safely airborne, although credibility points are justly deducted for Sadler adding a set of oars to his balloon basket to enable him to row through the air and “increase the motion”. This, however, was breakthrough science - the cutting edge of science could not have got any sharper in the 1780s. Some doubters warned that Sadler and his aeronautical contemporaries would anger God and forewarned them they risked flying too high and crashing into heaven.

  25 FEBRUARY 1784: THE ANNOUNCEMENT

  In the same month another unmanned balloon was released from Birmingham, eventually coming to ground at Cheadle in Staffordshire. The relatively short distance accomplished suggests it was probably not one of Sadler’s creations, though definitive proof hovers teasingly just out of reach.

  Two farmers retrieved the balloon “and then attempted to blow it up”. Whilst intending to inflate it, they deployed a pair of bellows and surrounded the inflammable air with lit candles. A contemporary newspaper recounts: “One of them approaching too near with a candle, the remaining inflammable air took fire, tore off the waistcoat, broke all the furniture, drove out the casement to a considerable distance, but did no damage to the bystanders except for singeing their hair.”

  Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal then broke what it considered to be an exclusive story: “Mr Sadler, we understand, is constructing a new balloon. It is filled with hot air extracted from burnt wood - a method which is entirely new and hitherto has not been attempted in the UK.” Whatever the Journal’s story source - good old-fashioned reporter on the ground or a journalist hacking into a mail stagecoach interception - it was essentially correct. This “hot air extracted from burnt wood” gas technique would almost certainly have been discovered by Sadler in the basement of what is now the rather clumsily named The Museum of the History of Science (“Science Museum” would be easier for the person who has to answer the phone) in Broad Street, Oxford. Formerly the basement was Oxford University’s first purpose-built laboratory, and Sadler gained employment there as a laboratory assistant.

  11 MAY 1784: UNMANNED ESSEX FLIGHT

  Buoyed by the success of his first unmanned experiments, Sadler repeated the exercise on 11 May 1784. This time the balloon reached just north of Maldon in Essex. There was another defining difference too. Whereas the previous flight was unmanned, so was this one - but not un-dogged.

  With an eye on planning a future manned ascent, Sadler had decided to test whether there was sufficient oxygen at altitude for a mammal to survive a balloon flight by propelling into the atmosphere a dog in the basket. Luckily for Sadler, the RSPCA was not founded until 1824.

  Two and a half hours after the balloon had commenced its climb out of Oxford as St. Mary’s Church struck noon, it was discovered between the Essex hamlets of Tollesbury and Tolleshunt D’Arcy approximately ten miles south of Colchester. Had the balloon floated much further on the prevailing westerly, it would have reached Clacton and open sea - the fate of the passenger not a positive one no matter how good he was at doing the doggy paddle. A label affixed to the basket supplied details of the dog within, but when a local surgeon, Mr. Arnold of Tolleshunt D’Arcy discovered the fallen balloon, the mut was nowhere to be seen.

  Whatever the fate of the airborne canine, Sadler had succeeded in putting a dog into space fully 180 years before the Soviets.

  ***

  After releasing a series of unmanned test balloons, Sadler decided his balloon was ready for an ascent carrying a rather precious cargo: himself. With dawn’s first light revealing the Dreaming Spires of Oxford intact again for another day, he took off from the site believed to be Merton Fields - or possibly the area now occupied by St. Hilda’s College - in early October 1784. He almost certainly planned not to be seen in case the experiment failed, but typically a journalist was present - presumably returning from the pub at 5am. The esteemed Jackson’s Oxford Journal reported the flight in quite astounding detail.

  4 OCTOBER 1784: FIRST MANNED FLIGHT

  Even before 1784 ended some doubt had seeped into Sadler’s claim that he had flown. But it seems unlikely, teetering on the edge of incredibility, that such a distinguished periodical as Jackson’s Oxford Journal would risk jeopardising its stainless integrity by reporting this English first as an exclusive if it had not happened.

  Scandal sheets and lewd gossip are not confined to modern times, but Jackson’s account is considered reliable. It is perfectly possible that Sadler was not seen, because no one knew in advance he was going to launch - and it was 5.30am opposite Magdalen College. How likely is it that a student would have been up at that time of the morning to witness the flight?

  Sadler’s inaugural manned flight was reported as an experiment, thereby instantly distancing him from the showmanship of other pioneer aviators. Referring to a “Fire Balloon raised by means of rarefied air”, contemporary descriptions described not a basket, but “a kind of gallery provided with a stove upended over it for containing the fire”.

  Aware of the necessity to heat air molecules for lift, rather than embrace the erroneous conclusion drawn by the French Montgolfier brothers that smoke provided the upwards momentum, Sadler designed his own stove. Calculating the correct amount of heat required allowed him to ensure that the stove was no heavier than it needed to be, which in turn reduced the size of the balloon envelope. As an inventor and engineer, Sadler would have pr
obably worked this out exactly, presumably algebraically (though how he learned such methodologies is only guessable and forms an alluring element to the Sadler story). His stove invention was transformational, allowing heat to be topped up to maintain flight and altitude, as was his clever addition of a lid controlling air flow. Unlike the Montgolfiers he was evidently aware that the stove only needed to generate heat not smoke into the envelope - hence the stove could be covered. This also reduced the risk of escaping embers that often proved fatal to his contemporaries.

  Sadler started to fill the balloon in the dark with his specially manufactured “rarefied air” at 3am until the balloon was fully inflated at 5.30am. One newspaper reported: “The enclosed air having undergone a sufficient degree of rarefication, the intrepid adventurer ascended into the atmosphere - the weather being calm and serene.” Aeronauts appear to have discovered surprisingly late in ballooning history the essentiality of that latter detail. Good luck in attempting to spot a balloon drifting above like an oversize soap bubble outside the few hours near dawn and dusk - the bookends of each day when most balloons are launched. And try spotting one in wind or rain. You hopefully never will, because they should not be launched in such conditions.

  Yet nearly all of the frontiersmen of flight relied upon ascending at a set time and date, often selected weeks or even months in advance. This pre-planned flight schedule was necessary for raising funds by subscription and selling tickets granting access to the launch site. Ballooning required a large capital outlay, and this accepted method of funding - and profit - by public subscription was consistent in flights undertaken in both France and Britain. On occasions when launches were delayed for just an hour, crowds were frequently reported as a growing restlessly threatening, and riots did occur. Obviously this presented an insurmountable problem for the trailblazer. A strong wind or storm could easily result in disaster, and balloons did catch fire, trailblazer taking on a sinister literal double meaning.

  Indeed, a few minutes into Sadler’s pioneering flight, a breeze picked up and blew the balloon horizontally at some velocity. It became clear to those on the ground that the balloon opened up the possibility of hitherto unimaginable speed to mankind. Ever the scientist, Sadler had brought several instruments into the basket. In spite of intense coldness at altitude, he realised his thermometer was unreliable given the distorting effect of the gallery’s oven. Yet his barometer readings enabled him to calculate that the balloon reached a maximum altitude of 3,900 feet, and after a sharp breeze it had dropped to 2,550 feet. Correctly calculating that additional heat was required to gain altitude, Sadler commenced stoking the oven.

  “In these circumstances and perceiving that he was approaching a wood, it was found absolutely necessary to make use of the oars.” Hmm. Sadler subsequently swapped his oars for two flags on all future flights, possibly learning that sticking oars on a balloon basket are as ineffectual as placing them on top of a double-decker bus. He descended after about thirty minutes in a field between Islip and Woodeaton.

  The St. James’s Chronicle and British Evening Post furnished their readers with considerable detail of the flight: “Just after dawn on Monday 4th October 1784 Sadler started preparation which would result by early afternoon the same day, in the pioneering accomplishment of being the first Englishman to fly.” Witnesses reported that Sadler accidently dropped his fire fork overboard, thus immediately hampering control of necessary heat generation. “The loss was irreparable,” concluded the London Chronicle, “and forced him to abandon his globe.”

  There are scant confirmed details on where Sadler had managed to build and test his components. Some sources have categorically stated that he used the kitchens behind his café in the High Street - again this appears to be a conclusion drawn more on reason than evidence. Sadler, on the other hand, preferred to draw his conclusions from evidence - empirically proven scientific observation being rather essential if you are reliant on it levitating you over a mile up into the sky.

  This is how Jackson’s Oxford Journal reported its world exclusive in October 1784:

  Early on Monday morning the 4th instant Mr. Sadler of this City tried the Experiment of his Fire Balloon, raised by means of rarefied air. The process of filling the Globe began at three o’clock, and about half past five as all was complete, and every part of the apparatus entirely adjusted, Mr Sadler, with Firmness and Intrepidity, ascended into the atmosphere, and the weather being calm and serene, he rose from the Earth in a vertical direction to a height of 3,600 Feet. In his elevated situation he perceived no inconvenience; and, being disengaged from all terrestrial things, he contemplated a most charming distant view. After floating for near half an hour, the machine descended, and at length came down upon a small eminence betwixt Islip and Wood Eaton, about six miles from this City.

  ***

  Later one source was to discredit Sadler, claiming his flight was fabricated. The Italian-born physicist Tiberius Cavallo was unreceptive to Sadler’s claims and said so in his 1785 book The History of Aerostation. If attempting to order this book from the library, be careful not to order The History of Aerosmith - I did, and realised my mistake as soon as I saw the librarian walk this way.

  Cavallo set about sniffily disclaiming Sadler’s historical ascent. However, as J.E. Hodgson notes in his accomplished 1924 work on pioneering aeronautics: “The Oxford Journal was, even by 1784, an old established newspaper and of a character not likely to countenance a bogus narrative.” Also it is surely pertinent that the same Jackson’s Oxford Journal’s obituary of Sadler in 1828 also makes clear reference to the 4 October 1784 date. Further overwhelming evidence of Sadler’s first Englishman flight status was provided by respected scientific writer George Urquart in his 1786 work Institutes of Hydrostatics.

  Yet the strongest, potentially jury-swinging evidence for the prosecution case that 4 October 1784 is indeed an unreliable date, long since chiselled into the stonework of English aeronautical history, comes via Sadler’s own son John. Balloon enthusiast, writer, professional flautist and composer of an ill-considered “opera for flute” (it’s a ‘no’ from me too), Thomas Monck Mason took up the case after Sadler’s death, aiming to establish the exact date of the first flight.

  Mason was an aeronaut himself, and in this capacity started a correspondence with Sadler’s son John seeking date clarification of the first ascent. John stated it was 12 October 1784, and confirmed it took place “from Oxford gardens”. Since this is merely eight days later than the official date of his father’s ascent, it renders the fine detail immaterial as this later date still comfortably provided Sadler with the coveted pioneer status. And it is worth mentioning that John Sadler was being asked to recollect several decades after the event. Nor could Monck, who wrote the bestselling account of a later record-breaking, albeit accidental, balloon flight from England to Germany, discover any evidence to dispute Sadler senior’s 4 October 1784 claim. In fact, if anything his book stress-tests the 4 October date as genuine. A plaque now stands adjacent to the launch site as official endorsement of the 4 October date.

  Commemorative plaque in Dead Man’s Walk, Oxford (Richard O. Smith)

  Mason then went on to publish two books, saddling both with titles so long that readers probably had to take a break and place a bookmark half-way through the title before returning to finish reading it later. Aeronautica or Sketches Illustrative of the Theory and of the Practice of the Aerostation Comprising an Enlarged Account of the Late Aerial Expedition to Germany. That’s just one of the titles. The uneagerly awaited follow-up, equally efficiently titled, was The Work and the Word or The Dealings and the Doctrines of God in the Relation to the State and Salvation of Man Summarily Reviewed and Reconciled and also Recommended in Accordance with the Dictates of Human Reasoning.

  However, Mason makes a singular yet astounding claim about Sadler, stating that he flew before October 1784. Aeronautica, published in 1838, contains th
e following passage: “Mr Sadler appeared a candidate for aeronautical honours having on the 12th September 1784 made an ineffectual attempt to ascend in a Montgolfier from a retired spot in the neighbourhood of Shotover Hill near Oxford, which was frustrated by the accidental combustion of the balloon almost immediately after it had quitted the earth and before it had attained an elevation of twenty yards. Had it not been for this untoward accident, a foreigner would not have had to boast the honour of having accomplished the first aerial voyage ever executed in England.”

  With the lack of any other supporting sources, this remains an isolated, and probably fanciful, claim. Oxford historian Mark Davies confirms that this is the sole reference to a September flight, though he concedes it was “logical enough to want to test things away from prying eyes”.

  Sadler’s first manned flight, date aside, would unquestionably have been longer, though not as long as one of Mason’s book titles, were it not for him dropping the toasting fork used for stoking the fire overboard. He immediately dispensed with cumbersome heavy stoves, and after only one flight in a hot air balloon, switched to hydrogen ballooning. This was the method he deployed for most of his flying life, although, with his son Windham, he later flew using innovative coal gas - a cheaper though less buoyant gas that behaved less temperamentally in changing temperature conditions.

  Sadler is very much claimed by the Town, not the Gown, of Oxford. After all, Sadler was a pastry cook, like his father James Sadler senior before him, and gained additional employment in the town as a lab assistant. Lacking formal education, it is this dichotomy which is so inherent to Sadler’s story: how did a man once described as barely able to use sufficient grammar to string a sentence together become such a successful self-taught pilot, scientist, engineer, designer, chemist, inventor and aviation pioneer?