Читать книгу Bravo Brown! - Terence FitzSimons - Страница 9

Introduction

It may be considered a perverse point of view, but cemeteries can be vibrant places. A stroll through Melbourne’s General Cemetery can provide such a buoyant experience; with the proviso, perhaps, that one is not at the time a mourner. There is the occasional grove, providing colour, shade and, at times, movement. The north-eastern division of the necropolis, in particular, provides a glistering vista of marble memorials and a gallery of portraits of those whose lives are now recorded for prosperity in pithy graven bio-sketches.

For those of an inquisitive disposition, a glance at the original 1852 plans for this graveyard will show that its planners had devised an ordered and spacious placement of graves set amongst a network of curving avenues, lawns, pavilions and pathways. The traditional grid system had been abandoned and a new design, favoured at the time by London and Paris, had been espoused: landscaped gardens and sweeping pathways were the new style.

In the midst of these changes the various religious denominations were to be decently segregated, with broad commodious allotments given over to the Church of England, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians and Jews – the Lutherans, and ‘other denominations’, had to make do with a small plot just off the central avenue.

As time passed, as with many well-planned undertakings, this one too succumbed to the pressure of increasing needs. As the numbers seeking a place of final repose increased, and the available space to accommodate them diminished, grassy knolls gave to give way to additional graves, with a resultant boisterous ecumenical jostling of Anglicans, Roman Catholics and others. Jones and Smith now lay close to Rossi and Bianchi, while Anglo-Angels, perched with outstretched wings atop Corinthian columns, gazed down on marble Italianate Madonnas. It presented a glorious example of just how circumstances and necessity can frustrate visionary planning and intention.

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Along the cemetery’s Sixth Avenue, up from the Jewish Mortuary Chapel, stands a Church of England enclave, now ringed about with the mortal remains of Italians, Greeks and Vietnamese. Today, should you step through the ranks of these graves, and if you search carefully enough, you will come upon a low cement plinth on which is set a small bronzed plaque bearing the following inscription:

Charles Henry Brown

1826–1870

Built Australia’s first balloon Australasian

which made the first manned flight in

Australia, from Richmond to Heidelberg

on 1st February, 1858.

Also his wife Eliza (1825–1898)

and children

Frederick (1850–1968)

Eugene (1854–1875)

This plaque was dedicated on the 22nd May 1994

by the Brown Family, The Balloon Association

of Victoria, Australian Ballooning Federation

and the Aviation Society of Victoria.

Here amongst this magnificent clutter lie the remains of the aeronaut whose correspondence you are about to peruse. There is no trace of any earlier tombstone so, on the face of it, this 1994 memorial is Brown’s valedictory.

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Close to the site of the Cremorne Gardens, the place from which Brown made some of his pioneering balloon ascents, school children have created a mural showing early balloon ascents from the gardens. This commemorative work carries no direct reference to the man himself and only an ←2 | 3→inaccurate depiction of the balloons that went aloft from that venue. The art work shows hot-air Montgolfier balloons taking to the sky. This type of craft was never flown at Cremorne. Unfortunately the bronze memorial, belatedly erected, also incorporates incorrect information.

The Australasian was not the first balloon built in the Australian Colonies. Indeed Brown himself never claimed it to be such. The Australasian was built in England and the well-established aeronaut, Henry Coxwell, in his 1887 autobiography, claimed responsibility for the balloon’s construction.

A number of noted balloons predated the Australasian. In Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) during May 1844, ‘Professor’ Rea (the title being self-awarded) constructed a Montgolfier balloon and announced his intention to ascend in this vehicle from Hobart. The Frenchman, Pierre Maigre, declared his intention of making the ‘first balloon ascent in the Australian colonies’ and scheduled it for Monday, 15 December 1856. He proposed to demonstrate his proficiency as an aeronaut, claiming to have successfully flown in France, the United States and the East Indies. His craft, the Sydney Balloon, stood 100 feet high with a circumference of 160 feet. It was also a Montgolfier balloon and was to ascend from Sydney’s Domain. The large vessel managed to rise only a few feet and the enraged spectators, believing themselves victim of a scam, rioted and destroyed the balloon. In the melee a large post used to tether the balloon crashed to the ground killing a young spectator. Bells Life in Sydney and Sporting Review reported the event as being a ‘bare-faced swindle’.

With all this clutter of information to hand it was puzzling as to how the sponsors of the memorial to Brown came to make the claim they did. With my own background in aviation and law, I was not prepared to leave this conundrum sit unexamined and resolved to investigate further.

The search for additional information relating to Charles Henry Brown led to the discovery of a twenty-page pamphlet on early ballooning in Australia. The author, Helene Rogers, identified as one of her primary sources a notebook from the State Library of Victoria’s archives, credited as the property of Brown. My request at the library yielded a card-bound volume, eight inches in length and six and a half inches wide. Its blue cloth cover was embossed with the title ‘Public Library of Victoria’. It ←3 | 4→was a substantial document containing 434 foolscap folio pages, clearly something more than a mere ‘notebook’. In fact, it was a collection of copies of letters to and from Brown, transcribed in a neat, though minute, copperplate hand. The blue pages were carefully pencil-lined with a 1-inch margin. On a cursory examination the document appeared to be a typical Victorian letter-book; a collection of copied letters intended to form a running commentary of one’s activities, social or business. This initial belief proved to be erroneous.

Brown had inserted a smaller folio at the front of the document, and had inscribed it: Aeronautica – Correspondence of C. H. Brown. With Explanatory Notes etc. The last pages of the document recorded an extensive index. I concluded that the text was not a letter-book in the proper sense of the word. Clearly Brown had prepared and intended Aeronautica for publication; further reading confirmed this view. The manuscript, however, never made it to print, hindered perhaps in part by the fact that in 1838 Monck Mason had produced a popular work which was known to devotees by its main title, Aeronautica.

Among Brown’s letters there are instances of lengthy passages of time without any entered correspondence being entered. Notable family events such as births and deaths pass without record, but perhaps this was only to be expected in a document that evidenced such a singular focus, aeronautics, and was obviously intended for a particular readership.

It is likely however, that Brown did keep a letter-book: there seems to be no other reasonable explanation as to how he was able to reference such a diverse collection of letters from which to compile his Aeronautica. We can therefore presume he managed this compilation of selected extracts from a missing letter-book.

The correspondence covers the period from 1843 through to 1864. Any initial gaps in the letters recorded may well demonstrate that Brown was not aware that some of the correspondences were to blossom into long-term exchanges; or it may reflect nothing more than a young man’s less that assiduous attention of maintaining his letter-book.

There are also tantalising references to other material that in all likelihood would have helped build a greater understanding of Brown’s aspirations, both for himself and aerostation. He had written a book on ←4 | 5→ballooning and, in his aeronautical correspondence, he makes reference to having submitted this work to the London publishes, William Shorberl. The manuscript was rejected; not necessarily because of any deficiency on Brown’s part as a writer. It was a work which Shorberl read with ‘considerable pleasure’ – but, as was explained, the times were ‘very inauspicious to literary speculations’. There is now no trace of that manuscript. Later, in his letters, Brown makes mention of a number of manuals he had written on the subject of aerostation, some of which were privately published, but these documents too have vanished. All of this correspondence was entered into at a time when the craft of aerostation was beginning to exciting a degree of scientific interest outside of its coterie of enthusiasts.

We have only a few early biographical details of Brown and, in his Aeronautica, he does little to enlighten the reader as to his youth in Leeds. By reference to other sources we can identify his father, Benjamin Brown, a bookkeeper who married Hannah Higgins in St Peter’s Church, Leeds, in April 1823. The couples’ first child, Edwin, was born in June of the following year, with Charles Henry Brown arriving two years later, though apparently undocumented, registration of births not then being required by law, the task falling to the local clergyman – the matter dependent on his diligence.

Undoubtedly Brown received a sound education, a fact shown by his neat handwriting and his competent use of language. His father intended this son should follow a career as a clerk, ideally in a permanent and pensionable position. However, the young Brown was already in the process of building up an extensive library of aeronautical literature as well as a number of illustrations.

Conquest of the air had been demonstrated by the French brothers, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. In 1782 they had sent aloft their hot air balloon. The first manned flight followed in 1783. Again it was two pioneer Frenchmen, De Rozier and the Marquis de A’landes, who made that balloon ascent. The title ‘aeronaut’ came to be applied to all such aerial adventurers.

Aerostation was introduced into Britain in September of the following year by an Italian, Vincenzo Lunardi. This novelty elicited a bevy of mixed responses; indifference, ridicule, through the new art was embraced by ←5 | 6→an enthusiastic few. Young Charles Henry Brown was a member of this last group.

Brown senior was passionately opposed to his son’s evident commitment to aerostation. He called upon his friend, William Russum, to help him persuade young Charles to give up his ridiculous idea. Russum, himself a well know aeronaut, had latterly fallen upon hard times and had become disenchanted with the calling. His negative assessment of aerostation’s future did nothing to dissuade the young Brown who declared, ‘I am determined I will be an aeronaut.’ We know little of Brown’s mother’s reaction to her son’s avowed intention to take to the air, though in later correspondence we are told she was curious as to his exploits in Australia.

By 1847 Brown had secured a position as a clerk in the postal services and on 5 September that year he married Eliza Hartley. The first and indirect mention of this lady occurs as late as October 1849, and then merely by a correspondent’s reference to Brown’s ‘good lady’. Nor do Brown’s six children receive any mention. Frederick (1850), Annie (1852), Eugene (1854), Herbert (1857), Vincent (1859) and Miriam (1862) all arrive without comment, and the particulars of Herbert’s infant death (1859) also passes unremarked. But as already suggested, Brown’s Aeronautica was not intended to serve as a domestic narrative.

The material in the correspondence introduces the reader to many aviation enthusiasts and prominent balloonists of the time. The people with whom Brown came to work and corresponded with were men who, like himself, had a vision for the future of manned flight: The Englishman, Henry Tracey Coxwell, the American, John Wise, the Irishman, Doctor Joseph Mac Sweeney and Brown’s early mentor, John Hampton, a Yorkshireman. Brown makes reference to his extensive library of works on aerostation, and he was constantly on the hunt for contemporary and historical material to enable him to expand his collection.

While those who actively practised ballooning proudly identified themselves as aeronauts, they were not a group without their petty rivalries and jealousies. There existed a marked disharmony between those who looked upon their craft as a science and others who viewed their undertaking as an entertainment. Notwithstanding these differences it becomes clear in the correspondence that both parties were mindful of a trinity of ←6 | 7→prerequisites: the need for a good location for their ascents, the prospect of a large and appreciative audience and good press coverage. The whole summed up as ‘place, population and press’. And there were the elite few who chose to add a fourth requirement, ‘purpose’, to that list.

It is evident that the aeronauts Hampton and Coxwell looked to Brown, as an enthusiast and competent writer, to act as a de facto agent, advancing their interests and editing their promotional material.

Although Brown’s correspondence reveals a great deal of the man himself, and not just his aspirations, we are left to imagine his wife Eliza either as compliant spouse, or an adventurous companion. Brown does record that Eliza ascended with him on a number of occasions. He also reveals himself as a man of spirit, endowed with a firmness of manner, so as not to be bullied by those he imagined were taking advantage of him. The reader discovers that on a number of occasions Brown, believing he had been unfairly dealt with, was prepared to deal with others as roughly as he imagined himself to have been treated.

The letters record two distinct phases in Brown’s aeronautical endeavours: his initiation into the craft in England and his subsequent venture in Australia. In the former he gives a clear indication of his desire to make a solo ascent and, in this regard, is encouraged by Henry Coxwell, and less effusively by John Hampton. Yet, for all his effort in England, Brown effectively became no more than Coxwell’s agent. In fairness to Coxwell he did later recommend Brown for the position of balloonist at the Melbourne Cremorne Pleasure Gardens. This engagement was first offered to Coxwell by the Australian based entrepreneur and entertainer, George Coppin. However, having been pressured by his wife to refuse the position, Coxwell then suggested Brown for the role.

Brown’s acceptance of the offer resulted in some questionable dealings regarding the supply of balloons to Coppin. Having ordered two new balloons, Coppin was persuaded to settle for one refurbished and one new balloon. The former, the Tavistock, was a poor flyer and the latter, the Australasian, a hastily built and untested craft. Notwithstanding this Brown imagined his success in Australia as being beyond doubt and he arranged his journey to the Antipodes with a sense of expectation greater than the circumstances warranted.

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Nothing in Brown’s correspondence gives any indication he had the slightest idea that he was likely to be met in Melbourne by a public which, if not hostile to his venture, was at least indifferent. The later successful flight of the Australasian from Cremorne Gardens was reported in the Melbourne papers as an item of entertainment; only ‘condescending mention was made of the triumph of science’. The single correspondence to appear in the newspaper columns after the initial ascents from the Gardens was a letter from the poet and a would-be politician, Richard. H. Horne, who had once written an article on ballooning for Charles Dickens Household Words, and who now expressed the faintly encouraging opinion that ‘ballooning may, one day or other, assist in the progress of science’.

When he arrived in Australia Brown had high hopes that the opportunity to undertake aerial exploration of the country’s interior would be offered him. It never was. In truth Brown was unsuccessful in many of his endeavours, but he is nonetheless representative of a group of some importance. So, while receiving no more than an occasional mention in aeronautical history, and having failed to fully realise his aspirations, the correspondence of this relatively obscure person provides a meaningful contribution to the history of aviation, and the letters that Charles Henry Brown compiled serve as his true memorial.

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To avoid misunderstanding, I have elected not to use Brown’s title Aeronautica as an introduction to his correspondence. The prospect of confusion with Monck Mason’s work is too great. As an alternative I’ve opted to use Henry Coxwell’s laudatory exclamation in a letter to Brown, who had procured a financially rewarding engagement for that aeronaut at Bradford. Coxwell was moved to write, ‘Bravo Brown!’ So it is by that title the correspondence will be presented to the reader. As to the letters themselves, while Brown is credited by his correspondents as being an adept with the pen, they themselves were extremely cavalier in their treatment of grammar, and Brown seems to have taken little or no trouble in editing their letters. Punctuation has long been the bane of writers, professional and casual. In this collection of letters the modern reader may find themselves challenged by the vagaries of Victorian punctuation ←8 | 9→which is, at best, erratic; also, the occasional idiosyncratic phrasing has been retained.

I have dispensed with the original salutations and valedictions except in those instances where they serve to indicate a particular context or tone in the correspondence.

In the correspondence, Brown’s ‘explanatory notes’ appeared as unnumbered footnotes, identified by a variety of symbols; however, I have now numbered these as this is a style that is familiar to most readers. As to the content of the footnotes, they make interesting, though puzzling reading. Brown, such a strong advocate of the potential benefits of aeronautics, has chosen to add a goodly number of footnotes relating to aerial disasters, great and small.

For my part, rather than present a confusing mix of footnotes, I have prefaced various letters with my own comments.

It becomes clear that Brown has not given us a record of all of his own letters, since there are instances where a missive from him is acknowledged by its recipient, but the original is not to be found. This has created an odd imbalance with Brown seemingly having received 210 letters while in England whereas his apparent outgoing correspondence is a mere thirty-three letters. In the six years of Australian correspondence, Brown records receipt of sixty-six letters while ostensibly writing only nineteen in reply. A further thirteen letters were written to newspapers.

The cut-off point of the correspondence is January 1864, with a letter from Brown to his brother declaring he had been offered the prospect of ballooning in China, Java and India. This undertaking seems not to have materialised.

There is also Brown’s tantalising declaration of his grand discovery of ‘a new sort of balloon’, needing neither gas or fire to propel it aloft, though nothing seems to have been done to progress this invention, and six years later Brown was dead. However, in those six years, aerostation was making great strides. Henry Coxwell, with his meteorological mentor James Glaisher, was gaining a reputation in international scientific circles and many successful ascents were being made in the Australian colonies. All passed without comment from Brown. To all intents and purposes, he had already quit the aeronautical scene.

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Other sources, not touched on in this text, reveal Brown as having in later life succumbed to the lure of liquor, though his brother Edwin recalls his younger sibling as being averse to strong drink. Whatever Brown’s shortcomings, none can in any way detract from the worth of his own aeronautical endeavours and the historical value of the extraordinary correspondence he compiled.

On January 18, 1870, Charles Henry Brown chose to end his life.

Terence FitzSimons

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