Hot Air Balloons Used To Cause Riots
by Ivan Farkas
Picture a college football game right now. A huge stadium with tens of thousands of people all screaming for a result that they desperately want. And also one they are way too invested in, because let's be honest, it has nothing to do with them. They're just spectators.
Things were similar back in the 1800s, except not with the various forms of football or stickball or whatever. It was actually something far more exciting: hot air balloons.
Riveting!
Of course, today, hot air balloons are sort of a novelty thing, almost like a carnival ride. “Holy crap, look at me! I'm in a basket thousands of feet above the Earth! I could die!” But back in pop media-starved times, these balloons were goddamn marvels— the day's top aeronautical tech, and source of amusement.
But the thing is, onlookers were not too keen on anything other than a prompt and satisfactory lift-off. And by “not too keen,” I mean “would literally riot.” It was not uncommon for crowds to quickly turn toward violence and display destructive tendencies if a balloon took too long (or failed) to ascend.
One notable riot occurred in 1864 in Leicester, England. A crowd of 50,000 had gathered at Victoria Park to watch hero-ballooneer Henry Tracey Coxwell, a man who’d nearly died during a previous 37,000-foot ascent into the stratosphere when 99% of his body had gone cold, numb, and hypoxic. Fortunately, he managed to pull a valve-cord with his teeth and descend before passing out.
But heroes can swiftly turn into villains, often through no fault of their own, as Coxwell found out when he apparently took too long to prepare his new ‘loon for launch. As the crowd grew restless, sweatier, and ever-more malodorous, two actions catalyzed catastrophe. Firstly, a knave in the mob, a self-proclaimed aeronaut himself, spread a “cruel [bit of] libel,” to wit: that Coxwell was holding out on everyone because this wasn't his largest, grandest balloon.
The second (and boiling) point occurred when an officer struck a woman, setting forth a deluge of rage that saw the rioters throwing themselves upon the deflating balloon; Coxwell fled, assuming he was next to be ripped to shreds. The few police officers present, whose only crime-fighting techniques included stern looks and confusion, were ineffective. Coxwell only escaped by hiding out in the home of the town clerk.
And this occasion was not a one-off. In Philadelphia in 1819, rioters dismantled not only the balloon, but also the Vauxhall Garden that hosted it. In Paris, when a balloon failed to take off and instead “took fire,” the jilted spectators jumped the defunct flying contraption and tore it to pieces, some taking chunks “large enough to make a mattress.” Which in turn were either sold as souvenirs or paraded through the streets like effigies.
But hey, thankfully, this was old-timey unpleasantness. I mean, today's society would never, say, trample and gouge each other over something like a Black Friday-discounted TV or the results of a sporting event, right?
