Sadler, James

See Hugh Torrens s article on James Sadler, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. See also Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Dep. c.134/2 James Sadler to Thomas Beddoes, 14 January 1791, for Sadler s own statement of the case. 

Martin Wall 1781-1785 William Austin 1785-1786 [William Higgins 1786-92] Thomas Beddoes 1787-1793 [James Sadler 1790-92 ]... 

On the other hand the well-known radical politician James Fox, a friend of Joseph Priestley, criticised Beddoes s lectures, admittedly at second hand. Beddoes also had problems with his demonstrations , which may have prompted him to hire James Sadler (1751-1828) who had given demonstrations of philosophical fireworks at the town hall in 1789 and 1790. Sadler, who had originally trained as a pastry cook under his father who was a confectioner in the High Street. Sadler is now best known as the first British person to ascend in a balloon. He made his first ascent on 4 October 1784 in a hot-air balloon of his own manufacture, similar to the one used by the Montgolfier brothers, almost a year after the first French ascents and three weeks after Vincenzo Lunardi s flight in London. He travelled six miles. Five weeks later, he made a second ascent in a hydrogen-filled balloon that travelled fourteen miles in a flight that was said to have lasted only twenty minutes. Beddoes described... 

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