The Man With His Head in the Clouds by Richard O. Smith

Author:Richard O. Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Aviation, psychology, self-help, acrophobia, flight, Oxford, British history
ISBN: 9781909930339
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2015-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

Sinking in the Last Chance Balloon: Sadler’s Comeback

A report in the snappily titled newspaper The Hull Packet and Original Weekly Commercial Literary and General Advertiser published in 1810 provides insight into Sadler’s precarious financial conditions, his friends’ sympathies and how Sadler is now trying to make amends. Again, it casts his personality in a favourable light.

“Mr Sadler the chief and paternal aeronaut has not done badly. His bills have been stuck up on windows and walls stating his much to be regretted misfortune and his ancient patronage. His present friends are active and alert to free him from trouble and satisfy his claimants.” Handbills were displayed as a public act of support for Sadler, pledging to clear his debts.

Ruin had only just been averted by his friends and with the support of well-wishers. But how could such an important and famous inventor, engineer, chemist, entrepreneur and celebrity aeronaut have hit the debt buffers so hard and speedily? The answer lies in his unceremonious dismissal from the Royal Navy.

Sadler had invested considered funds of his own into building and equipping a research laboratory in Portsmouth. When suddenly sacked from the Navy, he was left in considerable debt when his numerous creditors came circling him.

Although lacking hard facts, circumstantial evidence is sufficiently strong to allow the assumption that the motivation for Sadler’s return to aeronautical career, fully 25 years after he last stepped into a balloon basket, was financial. Saddled with huge debts after his treatment by Bentham, and reliant on a huge bail-out from his friends and public supporters, Sadler saw exhibition balloon flights as the only obvious way of accessing funds.

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