I purchased an Oxford token today featuring a balloon flight in the Nineteenth Century. It is the first one I have actually seen although I have read about it. Here is an edited version of an article I wrote some time ago.
Isaac Earlysman Sparrow -an early balloon flight
Sparrow was a London Ironmonger and nail merchant
who took part in an early balloon flight at Oxford. He obviously enjoyed the
experience as he used the flight in his advertising and a series of tokens that
were issued in his name.
He paid 50 pounds to a Charles Green “for the privilege
of being allowed to encounter the perils of the voyage”. That sum would probably
be about four thousand pounds now. Green’s first flight was July 1821 and the
one with Sparrow was only Green’s fifth trip. Green was a professional balloonist
and clocked up over five hundred flights in his career including a flight from
London to Germany.
The flight was in June 1823 and witnessed by a crowd
of 5000 [i]A
large sum of money collected from spectators watched filling the balloon. The ropes
on the balloon caught edge of a chimney and nearly upset the basket. Sparrow
waved his flag gaily after balloon righted itself. It reached a considerable
height and travelled east. It had an altimeter which had been damaged but they
still able to calculate height of two miles. The account describes seeing clouds
like an ocean of snow and the “Mosaic pavement of the earth” below. The
balloonists used flags to tell if ascending or descending. After a journey of
some 18 miles south east of centre of Oxford they descended rapidly near woods
of Nettlebed Heath.
At the time of the flight was based at Sun Street
and moved to Bishopsgate. He renamed his warehouse Balloon House and later
issued a series of farthings to commemorate the event. As well as nail and ironmongery he was proud
of his “leather sauce” – a type of polish or preservative.
