| Description: | The First Aerial Voyage in Britain: 1784
"It is perhaps to be regretted that the first aerial voyage in this country fell to the honour of a foreigner, Vincenzo Lunardi-himself a Tuscan-who was the handsome Secretary to the Neapolitan Ambassador in London. Lunardi was later to be given an honorary commission in the Honourable Artillery Company, for it was from their ground at Moorfields in London that Lunardi took off on his historic journey on September 15th, 1784-
Like all balloonists of the time, Lunardi took aboard an attractive assortment of goods, including livestock. His hydrogen "spherical" was a handsome affair of blue and red gores his next balloon was to bear a giant Royal Arms and took off on that fine September day bearing its pilot, a cat, a dog, a bottle of wine, a leg of chicken, and other provisions.
Lunardi first, and briefly, touched down at North Mimms, where the cat-which had decided it had had enough abandoned ship. The final landing was at Standon near Ware in Hertfordshire, after a voyage of 24 miles in 24 hours.
On the little stone monument, still to be seen there, are cut these lines:
‘Let Posterity know, and knowing be astonished, that on the 15th day of September, 1784 Vincent Lunardi of Lucca in Tuscany, the First Aerial Traveller in Britain, mounting from the Artillery Ground in London and traversing the Regions of the Air for two Hours and fifteen Minutes, in this Spot revisited the Earth. On this rude monument for ages be recorded that wonderous Enterprise successfully achieved by the Powers of Chemistry and the Fortitude of Man, that Improvement in Science which the Great Author of all Knowledge, patronizing by His Providence the Invention of Mankind hath graciously permitted to their Benefit and His own Eternal Glory.’"
C H Gibbs-Smith
One of 12 prints from the Collections of the Royal Aeronautical Society reproduced by the Society to mark its Centenary in 1966 - No. 9 |
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