BALLOON MAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 May 1941, Page 7

BALLOON MAN

PIONEER OF THE AIR. He loved balloons as a boy. They fascinated him. Nothing in the world appealed to him then so much as balloons, and the older he grew the more they exercised a spell over him. He was Henry Coxwell, a pioneer of ballooning, son of Commander Coxwell cl’ the Royal Navy, and was born in the parsonage of Wouldham on tne Medway. That was in 1819. Henry was apprenticed to a dentist, but his boyish imagination was so much in the air that it was with difficulty he paid attention to his profession. He went to see ballooning displays. He coveted the opportunity, of going up in a balloon, making his first ascent when he was 25. His enthusiasm ran away with him, and he edited a balloon magazine. In 1847 he went up in a balloon at Vauxhall. and it is astonishing that he came down alive, for a huge slit appeared in the balloon. Nothing quenched his ardour. He went all over Europe giving balloon displays. Germany, Holland. Prussia. Austria, all saw Henry Coxwell exploring the upper air. and in 1862 they thought he had gone up for ever, for he rose to about seven miles, attaining what is believed to have been the greatest altitude ever reached by man up to that time. To us, of course, his achievement is as nothing, but it was a great day for Henry, though he was almost frozen to death, and then dropped 19.000 feet in less than 15 minutes. His last ascent was made from the old city of York, after 40 years of ballooning. He died in 1900, a pioneer of the air who never even dreamed of what you and I think commonplace—the plane.