THE FIRST ENGLISH AERONAUT

Evening Star, Issue 20048, 13 December 1928, Page 3

THE FIRST ENGLISH AERONAUT

MEMORIAL UNVEILED AT OXFORD The Bishop of Oxford recently unveiled a tablet which has been erected in the Church of St, Pcter-in-lho-East, Oxford, by tho Royal Aeronautical Society to the memory of James Sadler, the first laiglifeli aeronaut, who died 100 years ago and h buried in (ho churchyard. Sadler was the son of a pastrycook in the High street. He was born in 1753, and made his first balloon ascent at Oxford on October 4, 1784. Those- present at the unveiling ccrcinonc included Sadler’s great-grandson, Mr Harold Sadler, of. the Liverpool Aero Club; Sir Michael Sadler, Master of University Co - lege; the principal of St. Edmund Hall, the Rev. G. B. Crenshaw; Dr R. T. Gunther, of the old Ashmolean, where seven.relics of Sadler are exhibited; Wing-coin inander A. G. R. Garrod, chief instructor to the Oxford University Air Squadron (representing the R.A.F.); Mr Griffith Brewer (representing the Royal Aero Club); Major D. 11. Kennedy (km. treasurer of the Royal Aeronautical Society); Captain J. Lawrence Pritchard (secretary); Mine De Lancia (representing the Air League of the .pniish Empire); and Mr J. E. Hodgson, of lh Royal Aeronautical Society, who banned the tablet over to the keeping of the vicar and churchwardens. The Bishop of Oxford said that Sadler was a man of no particular note, following a quite ordinary trade in Oxford, and jet taking a deep interest in the problem ot the use of the air. He look a forward step nearly 150 years ago, and Ins name should not be forgotten. When one looked across the 100 years since his death, anti thought of all that had happened in aircraft since, especially in the last thirty years, one was tempted to inquire whetnei there was any value in it. Surely tneie was value in it. The increased control we had acquired over the forces of the woi c had made it easier for men in various parts of the world to think together and understand one another. Isolation was apt o lead to misunderstanding. Our increased command of Nature was wholly to ’ - good. It was the proper business of man to retain control over all earthly tilings, and bend all material development to spiritual ends.