Baldwin



In 1785 the first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, was published in London. Later that year, and duly reported, a remarkable balloon flight started at Chester Castle. The first manned (hot air) balloon ascent took place in Paris on October 15, 1783 in a tethered balloon. While always associated with the Montgolfier brothers, they did not actually make the first ascent themselves but allowed an enthusiastic friend, the school-teacher Pilâtre de Rozier to take the risk. De Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes (a French marquis) made their first untethered flight in a Montgolfier hot air balloon on 21 November 1783. The unfortunate Rozier soon became (in 1785) one of the first victims of an "air-crash", but a "balloon craze" struck Europe. The first hot-air balloons drew huge crowds, inspiring onlookers to cry, laugh, even faint. One witness wrote:


 * “Since these exhibitions, there seems to prevail a kind of aerial phrenzy among us. The term ‘balloon’ is not only in the mouth of everyone, but all our world seems to be in the clouds.”

For some, the new invention was the culmination of Enlightenment science, the pinnacle of human ingenuity. Grand schemes abounded: using balloons to carry mail, to improve cartography, to bombard enemy fortifications. Then, almost overnight, the fervor subsided as everyone sobered to the fact that these vehicles, which couldn’t be steered, were largely useless. Benjamin Franklin observed the first flight from his terrace in Paris: a beautiful, blue-and-gold ovoid, like a giant Fabergé egg, floating above the Seine. As Franklin recollected, “Someone asked me, ‘What’s the use of a balloon?’ I replied, ‘What’s the use of a newborn baby?’” - an epigram that would ricochet around the world.

Early Balloonists


James Tytler (17 December 1745[1] – 11 January 1804) was a Scottish apothecary, regular drunkard and the editor of an edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. Under the pseudonym "Ranger" Tytler published "Ranger's Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh, a private book detailing 66 working ladies in the city". Tytler became the first person in Britain to fly by ascending in a hot air balloon (1784), almost a month before his rival to the title, Vincenzo Lunardi, made a hydrogen balloon ascent in London. Tytler's venture was expensive, but succeeded after several attempts on 25 August 1784, in Edinburgh. His balloon rose a few feet from the ground. Two days later he managed to reach a height of some 350 feet, travelling for half a mile between Green House on the northern edge of what is now Holyrood Park to the nearby village of Restalrig. Later trials were less fortunate: in one flight he had to cut away his fire basket and fly clinging to ropes when the crowd rioted. In October his balloon only took off after Tytler left the basket, to the disappointment of the crowd. Having previously been 'the toast of Edinburgh', he was ridiculed and called a coward. His last flight was on 26 July 1785. He was outlawed in absentia by the Scottish High Court because of political dissent and moved to Belfast in 1793, then in 1795 to the United States. In Salem, Massachusetts, he edited the Salem Register, published some works and sold medicine. On 9 January 1804, Tytler left his house drunk; two days later the sea returned his body. Robert Burns had described Tytler as:


 * "…an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of Tytler commonly known by the name of "Balloon Tytler", from his having projected a balloon, a mortal who, though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-Grace-of-God and Solomon-the-Son-of-David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompous Encyclopaedia Britannica, which he composed at half-a-guinea a week."

The hydrogen balloon made its first flight in August 1783. Designed by Professor Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert, it carried no passengers or cargo. On 1 December 1783, their second hydrogen-filled balloon made a manned flight piloted by Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert. This occurred ten days after the first manned flight in a Montgolfier hot air balloon.

The first manned balloon flight in England was performed by the somewhat flamboyant Vincent Lunardi. On 15 September 1784, Lunardi took to the skies with his dog and cat, and a caged pigeon, in a hydrogen balloon fitted with oars, with which he intended to control his course. One oar fell to the ground as the balloon rose, but this did not prevent him from occasionally working the one remaining oar and in fact believing that it was due to his labors that he was able to descend the first time (at what is still called "Balloon Corner" in Welham Green) to release his cat from the basket, for "the poor animal had been sensibly affected by the cold.". The cat was perhaps not the only casualty, it was gossip at the time that when Lunardi dropped his oar during a later flight a moman in the audience fainted away and perished. On January 7th of 1785 Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries traveled from Dover to Calais in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.

Hydrogen balloon flights were expensive to undertake, as vast quantities of the gas had to be generated by the reaction of vitriol (sulphuric acid) with metal filings (or simply scrap iron), so flights became something of a circus to raise the funds needed. Meanwhile in Chester, Thomas Baldwin (1742-1804, or "Baldwyn"), tried, in 1783 after resigning from his position as a Haslingden curate, to fund the construction of a balloon by subscription, but was unable to raise enough money. A display of Thomas' exploits, which included his design for a "grand naval air balloon" from 1784, was until recently still found at Hoole Hall. Balwin was a clergyman whose father lived at Hoole Hall: English Heritage has Hoole Hall being built for the Rev. John Baldwin c1760, and the property passed to Thomas when John died in 1793.

Lunardi In Chester
In September 1785, when Lunardi brought his "Flying Circus" to Chester, he allowed Thomas Baldwin to hire his balloon and make a solo ascent so that he could sketch some aerial views. Lunardi's visit to Chester was advertised as the occasion for his ascent in a hydrogen balloon from the town's castle. However, Lunardi suffering "a burn to the hand from an acid used to make the hydrogen, and his servants were left to make the ascent, in order to appease the angry crowd". Baldwin's prayers had been answered.

The European Magazine gives another version of events:




 * "Lunardi met with a very unfortunate accident which prevented him from ascending at Chester this week according to promise - the circumstance was this: - When the balloon was nearly inflated and the car brought to be attached to it, Lunardi through his eagerness to pursue so favourite a science by some accident burnt his arm and hand with the vitriol in a most terrible manner; in short to such a degree as to render his ascension impossible; however Lunardi told his servant to get in which he did and ascended without the least degree of fear to the satisfaction of the multitude He went nine miles and came to Chester about nine o'clock with the balloon."

Looking in the records of the Chester Chronicle we find no mention of the "servant" but are told (26th August 1785) that:


 * "Lunardi appologised for the accident which delayed the ascent of his balloon to so late an hour"



The paper goes on to report that Lunardi had finally taken-off the Monday before and flown to Hatton Heath, six miles distant.

Baldwin's Flight
On Friday, 2nd September the Chester Chronicle reported:


 * "Mr Lunardi presents his respectful complements to the public with thanks for the favours that he has already received and begs leave to inform them that he has resigned his place in his balloon to T.B. esq a Gentleman of Chester"

However his flight came about, Baldwin then wrote a highly detailed and lengthy account of the voyage, with the impressive title: Airopaidia: Containing the Narrative of a Balloon Excursion from Chester, the Eighth of September, 1785, taken from Minutes made during the Voyage: Hints on the Improvement of Balloons, and Mode of Inflation by Steam: Means to Prevent their Descent over Water: Occasional Enquiries into the State of the Atmosphere, etc. The Whole Serving as an Introduction to Aerial Navigation: with a Copious Index. Baldwin wrote:


 * "On Thursday the 8th of September 1785, at 9 in the Morning was first fired one of the Cannons (a six-pounder) from the Castle-yard to inform the City and Neighbourhood that the necessary Preparations were making to inflate the Balloon."

He started with the release of a smaller balloon of his own as a sounding device, making it quite clear that he had almost beaten the French to it with his own earlier work:


 * "At 10 o'Clock the process began with the inflation of an airistatic Globe eighteen feet in Circumference of Silk Tiffany made the latter End of the Year 1783 and decorated with Painting, Mottoes and Devices: in the Performance of which little Work, Mr Baldwin was the Sole Projector, Architect, Workman and Chymyst .. It was intended to serve as a sort of Pioneer, to delineate the Track of the Great Balloon. It fell at some Miles Distant, tis said unfortunately on a Hedge and was presently torn to Pieces by the Eagerness and Avarice of the Pursuers who expected and undeservedly obtained the Reward promised in the letter appended to it."



Baldwin started his voyage of discovery by weighing himself, something which he did in private. He then climbed into the balloon's basket and handed out the lead weights which had been placed in it while it was being inflated. Baldwin initially feared he would be blown out to sea:


 * "Just after his first ascent being in a well watered and maritime part of the country he observed a remarkable and regular tendency of the balloon towards the sea but shortly after rising into another current of air he escaped the danger the upper current he says was visible to him at the time of his ascent by a lofty sound stratum of clouds flying in a safe direction. The perspective appearance of things to him was very remarkable. The lowest bed of vapour that first appeared as cloud was pure white in detached fleeces increasing as they rose they presently coalesced and formed as he expresses it a sea of cotton tufting here and there by the action of the air in the undisturbed part of the clouds so that the whole became an extended white floor of cloud the upper surface being smooth and even. Above this white floor he observed at great and unequal distances a vast assemblage of thunder clouds each parcel consisting of whole acres in the densest form he compares their form and appearance to the smoke of pieces of ordnance which had consolidated as it were into masses of snow and penetrated through the upper surface or white floor of common clouds there remaining visible and at rest Some clouds had motions in slow and various directions forming an appearance truly stupendous and majestic." (Annals of Some Remarkable Aërial and Alpine Voyages)

The book included everything from an inventory of the items taken (including the weight of each item) to a florid description of his sensations as he flew:


 * ..what Scenes of Grandeur and Beauty! A Tear of pure Delight flashed in his Eye! of pure and exquisite Delight and Rapture: to look down on the unexpected Change already wrought in the Works of Art and Nature, contracted to a span by the NEW PERSPECTIVE, diminished almost beyond the bounds of credibility.



The scientifically-minded Baldwin carried out experiments whilst in the air, including sampling foods to see if they tasted the same (they did - "Contrary to what travelers have reported from the Peak of Teneriffe") and carrying feathers "loose in the pocket and thrown out when entwined in Clouds or at any other Time to see the rise or fall of the balloon". Other necessary equipment of the well-prepared Baldwin included: two red lead pencils ("pointed both ends"), a pointed knife, a bottle of brandy and water ("for experiments"), a cork-screw, confectionaries such as bread, biscuits and fruit, 2 needles with large eyes ("raw silk already threaded and knotted"), a map on a board ("also to serve as a table"), Dutch twine, 3 flags, a yard of thin ribbon, a magnet and iron filings in a pewter dish and cover, eight bladders ("half blown and different colours for decoration"), a speaking trumpet and "a live pidgeon, not forgetting Pepper. Salt, Ginger to try the Effects of Tastes which have been said to become insipid on the Peak of Teneriffe".

Baldwin's estimates of altitude appear flawed. He says in one account that he estimated that he reached a height of seven miles. At that altitude, probably anywhere above about five miles, he would have soon passed-out for lack of oxygen. Rozier and the chemist Joseph Proust had reached above two miles in 1784, but until 1803, and the ascent of the stage magician Étienne-Gaspard Robert, no-one had reached Baldwin's claimed altitude of above four miles.

Henry Coxwell and James Glaisher reached almost seven miles in a coal-gas balloon in 1862, but Glaisher lost consciousness during the ascent due to the low air pressure and cold temperature of −11 °C (12 °F). Captain Hawthorne C. Gray (United States Army Air Corps) surpassed this record only in 1927, in a helium balloon, and died during his descent when his oxygen supply ran out. Based on the images he sketched, and the evidence of his barometer, it seems likely that Baldwin probably reached an altitude of 1-2 miles.

The account of the voyage itself is interspersed with and followed by discourses upon hints and improvements such as the best time of day for voyages, how to land in windy weather, and how best to conduct experiments while aloft. His first near-landing (at Kingley) was dramatic, and he later flew on to return once and for all to terra firma at Rixton:


 * "..approaching a third Hedge the Aironaut cut away the Barometer-Frame; threw out the basket with the Bottle and Tunning Dish; the Spreaking Trumpet; the Woolen GLove; the half Mile of Twine in the Reel with the result that the Car cleared the Hedge."

Thomas Baldwin’s Airopaidia contains the first British representations of a "real" aerial view, and the city of Chester can be seen in the lower left corner of one image ("A Balloon-Prospect from above the Clouds, or Chromatic View of the Country between Chester, Warrington and Rixton-Moss in Lancashire: shewing the whole Extent of the aerial Voyage; with the meandering Track of the Balloon throu’ the Air") and in the center of another ("'''A Circular View from the Balloon at its greatest Elevation. The Spectator is supposed to be in the Car of the Balloon, suspended above the Center of the View: looking down on the Amphitheatre or white Floor of Clouds and seeing the City of Chester, as it appeared throu’ the Opening: which discovers the Landscape below, limited, by surrounding Vapour, to something less than two Miles in Diameter.  The Breadth of the blue Margin defines the apparent Height of the Spectator in the Balloon (viz. 4 Miles) above the Floor of Clouds, as he hangs in the Center, and looks horizontally round into the azure sky.'''"). Despite the well-documented fact that it was Baldwin of Chester who made the ascent, in John McGahey's preparatory sketches for his balloon view of Chester (1855), he for some reason attributes the flight to Lunardi.

Another Flight
Joseph Hemingway records a second flight:


 * 1785: The 1st of September Captain G. French, a gentleman still resident in Chester, ascended in Lunardi's balloon from the Castle Yard, four p.m. and descended at six at Macclesfield, 40 miles. On the 7th, Mr Baldwin ascended from the same place at one p.m. and descended beyond Warrington.

"Mechanics' Magazine and Journal of Science, Arts, and Manufactures, Volume 6" gives an alternate date:


 * "Mr Baldwin on the 8th of September ascended with Mr Lunardi's Balloon from Chester at 40 minutes past one and after ascending to the height of nearly four miles he descended at 53 minutes after three".

"Walkers Hibernian Magazine" gives a slightly different version of events with variant dates:


 * "September 1: Lieutenant French of the Cheshire Militia ascended at Chester in Mr Lunardi's balloon and alighted at Macclesfield forty miles distant in two hours."


 * "September 15: Thomas Baldwyn Esq of Chester ascended from that city in Mr Lunardi's balloon and in two hours and an half alighted at Rixton Moss in Lancashire, 25 miles from Chester."

Little more is recorded about the flight of Lieutenant George French of the Cheshire Militia (or Captain French in the alternative), other than the bare fact that it took place, and that French had some problems getting into the air. French rose three yards and then touched down again, so he dumped all his ballast, along with his provisions, hat and coat before taking off on his flight. It is not clear whether French took the flight "for a lark" or whether this was an attempt to assess the possible military applications of aviation. By co-incidence the 2nd Royal Cheshire Milita barracks was in Macclesfield, where French landed - there is no record of how the Militia reacted.

The next flight from Chester took place on 7th June 1824. The notable balloonist Windham Sadler ascended in a balloon from Chester Castle. It was to be one of his last flights - on 29 Sept Sadler made his thirty-first ascent (at Bolton) but "the wind dashed his car against a lofty chimney, and he was hurled to the ground, sustaining injuries of which he died at eight on the following morning".

John Lowe, a goldsmith of Chester, gave a description of "Bridge Street Row" in 1860 which ends with a mention of several past "characters" including one "Captain French" (possibly the balloonist who ascended from Chester Castle in 1785) who used to frequent the Rows around 1810-20 (when Lowe was a boy).

Baldwin the Man


We know comparatively little about Baldwin. He was admitted to Peterhouse Cambridge in October 1760 at the age of 19, and was a scholar in 1763. He took his BA in 1765 and his MA in 1768, and was a curate at Haslingden (Lancs) from 1779-83. By the time of his flight he had not yet inherited Hoole from his father, but he was evidently living there as he is listed as a book subscriber living there. According to Ormerod, he sold the estate in 1800. While it has been stated that his father was the rector of St Martin, Chester, he is certainly son of John Baldwin, rector of Plemstall.

Baldwin and Science
Baldwin has been described as having made no real contribution to aeronautics. That ignores several things: Baldwin invented the "Drag Rope" to control the altitude of a balloon. He was the first to abserve several phenomena, as described below, and made the first sketches of the earth from the air. It has also been implied that he was a mere adventurer, but he clearly started work on balloons even before the first flight of the Mongolfier brothers. His book has been descibed as "prolix", but it should be remembered that he was as much writing a vivid description of his flight as also a scientific report on his experiences. The are some articles about Baldwin which are just plain wrong: an article in Hoole Roundabout stated that he invented and experimented with helium balloons - this cannot be correct, Helium was only discovered in 1868 by spectroscopy and the first, small samples of the element became available in 1895. It was not used in balloons (the C-class blimp) umtil 1921.

The Pilots Glory
Baldwin appears to have been the first to note this during flight. A glory is an optical phenomenon, resembling an iconic saint's halo around the shadow of the observer's head, caused by sunlight or (more rarely) moonlight interacting with the tiny water droplets that compose mist or clouds. The glory consists of one or more concentric, successively dimmer rings, each of which is red on the outside and bluish towards the centre. Due to its appearance, the phenomenon is sometimes mistaken for a circular rainbow, but the latter has a much larger diameter and is caused by different physical processes.

The Principle of Equivalence
Einsteins equivalence principle is why we feel heavier as a lift accellerates upwards, or why a freely falling person is "weightless". Popular accounts often state that Einstein thought of this after he witnessed a painter falling from the roof of a building adjacent to the patent office where he worked. This version of the story leaves unanswered the question of why Einstein might consider his observation of such an unfortunate accident to represent "the happiest thought in his life", and so is possibly untrue. However, Baldwin had made the same observation about pressure on the soles of his feet when he rose in the balloon. Einstein's "happiest thought" led him to develop his Theory of Relativity which seems complex but has everyday consequences such as making GPS work and explains why gold is the colour it is.

Baldwin and Steamboats
As well as inventing a new form of musical notation, Baldwin (after he moved to Prescot, Lancashire) funded the then unknown engineer John Smith, who appears to have built a very early steamboat in 1797. According to the Billing's Liverpool Advertiser, dated the 26th June 1797, his "vessel heavily laden with copper slag, passed along the Sankey Canal ... by the application of steam only ... it appears, that the vessel after a course of ten miles, returned the same evening to St Helen's whence it had set out". This boat was powered by a Newcomen engine working a paddle crankshaft through a beam and connecting rod.

Baldwin and Musical Notation
Baldwin entered into a long correspondence with Charles the 3rd Earl Stanhope concerning a new musical notation. In this letters were used to represent notes. Stanhope’s “letter-music,” an alternative to standard musical notation for the musically illiterate which he developed with Thomas Baldwin, never caught on, nor did Stanhope's machine for transcribing into a kind of shorthand music played on a keyboard instrument.

"Professor Baldwin" (and others)


In the summer of 1888 Londoners flocked in their thousands to marvel at the feats of a dashing American daredevil calling himself Professor Baldwin. The adverts placed in the Times promised it would be ‘the greatest scientific sensation of the age’ but only hinted at what was planned:


 * Professor Baldwin has succeeded in making an umbrella with sufficient surface resistance to land passengers from an aerial ship at any height.

Baldwin’s act was in fact the Victorian equivalent of a skydive, albeit only from a few thousand feet. He ascended in a balloon before jumping off and parachuting down to safety. This being 1888, the modern parachute was still in its infancy, and illustrations from the Illustrated London News reveal how ‘amateur’ the stunt was. But this was not Hoole's Baldwin, this other Baldwin, who had perfected his act in America before travelling to England, made his first jump at Alexandra Palace on Saturday, July 28, 1888. As The Times reported:


 * The aeronaut, who went up alone, and was dressed in tights, held on by the ring, with his feet resting on the ropes of the balloon and the umbrella hanging by his side. The balloon speedily attained a great height and then the aeronaut leaped or dropped away from it. A moment afterwards he was seen at some distance from the balloon high up in the air beyond the racecourse of the Palace, gracefully, steadily, and quickly descending with his umbrella opened out above him like a monster mushroom.

After landing Baldwin returned to the Palace to be "enthusiastically cheered by the thousands of spectators in the Palace grounds and the adjoining fields." Although the Times reporter doubted whether Baldwin reached the height of 1,000ft being claimed, he noted that "it was certainly one of the most extraordinary and successful sensational feats of modern times."

This Professor Baldwin is not the same as Thomas Scott Baldwin who is now remembered as ‘The Father of the Modern Parachute’ (previous versions having ribs like umbrellas) and its worth was proved years later when Grant Morton made the first successful jump from an aeroplane in California in 1911. Either of these two later Baldwins is often quoted as being the first parachutist ever, but that fame belongs to Louis-Sébastien Lenormand who, on December 26, 1783, jumped from the tower of the Montpellier observatory in front of a crowd that included Joseph Montgolfier, using a 14-foot parachute with a rigid wooden frame.

As for yet another "Professor Baldwin" he apparently came to a sticky end in 1905, when he miscalculated the timing of dynamite (by some accounts rigged to blow up his balloon after he parachuted from it - in other accounts to be dropped), and was "blown to atoms". Reports stated that there was "no trace" of a parrot and monkey which accompanied him on his last flight.

There are at least ten Baldwins who did something notable in balloons, and they are frequently confused.

Related Pages

 * Chester Castle: where Baldwin took off from;
 * Hoole: where he lived;

Sources & links



 * More on the balloon flight from Chester.;
 * More on the Baldwins;
 * Baldwin's illustration is used on the cover of "The Invention Of Clouds" by Richard Hamblyn;
 * John Smith (steamboat builder) at Grace's Guide;
 * Baldwin and Steamboats;
 * Balloon Maps;
 * The Modern Atlantis; Or, The Devil in an Air Balloon: "Bodice-Ripper" from 1784;
 * The unfortunate James Tytler: the first British balloonist;
 * The Music Trade in Georgian England: Baldwin and musical notation;
 * The Italian and his Balloon: “An account of five aerial voyages in Scotland” by Vincenzo Lunardi;
 * Professor Baldwin: Victorian Daredevil;
 * Professor Baldwin "blown to atoms";
 * Yet another balloonist Thomas Baldwin;