In June 1783 the
Montgolfier Brothers first amazed the public with their invention, the Hot Air Balloon.
In September of the same year they sent a dog, a sheep and a
cockerel up in a balloon launched from the gardens of the Palace
of Versailles outside Paris and in November a balloon ascent
carrying a man was made from the centre of Paris.
A year later Vincenzo Lunardi made the first balloon flight
in England, in a balloon built by public subscription which
was put on view in the dome of the Lyceum Theatre for subscribers
and other patrons to see. The balloon was later displayed at
the
Pantheon in Oxford Street, after which other fantastic ‘aerostatic machines’
were built, displayed and flown, with varying amounts of success.
Balloon ascents were a huge attraction in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries, even at the theatre and circus. In December
1814 a balloon ascent by Monsieur Garnerin featured in Covent
Garden’s 1814 pantomime, ‘Harlequin Whittington, Lord Mayor
of London’, with the child passenger Mlle. Blanche Garnerin.
The playbill advertised the balloon descending ‘from the roof,
over the audience onto the stage’.
There was even a balloon ascent with a leopard at Astley’s
Circus in July 1840, which was advertised as ‘The Grand Ascent
of Carter the Lion King in his Leopard Balloon!’
Theatrical balloon flights were limited affairs, but clearly
whetted the public’s appetite for a glimpse of more spectacular
ascents. In the 1830s and 1840s London’s
Vauxhall Gardens was famous for balloon ascents, boasting the red and white striped
Royal Vauxhall balloon.
Introduction
