Balloons and Bowler Hats: Early Images from Victorian Skies

The earliest surviving aerial images of England were discovered at a car boot sale in 2015.

They were taken between 1882 and 1892 from a balloon by photographer and balloonist Cecil Shadbolt, who was trying to map the rapidly changing London from the air. He tragically died in a balloon accident aged 33.

This important collection of 76 Victorian glass lantern slides has been conserved, digitised, catalogued, and researched. Known as the Shadbolt Collection, it can be viewed online through the Historic England Archive.

Who was Cecil Shadbolt?

Cecil Victor Shadbolt was a photographer born in 1859, the son of George Shadbolt (1819 to 1901) and his wife Elizabeth.

George Shadbolt was a photographer and editor of the ‘British Journal of Photography’. It is likely that Cecil learned his photography skills from his father.

It is not clear when Cecil Shadbolt became interested in ballooning. For a long time, ballooning was a dramatic spectacle associated with fairground attractions. But from the mid-1840s, balloons were beginning to be used by very early photographers trying to capture the view from above.

It was incredibly difficult to get a clear image because the balloon was constantly moving. Advances in camera and plate technology during the previous decade, coupled with Shadbolt’s invention of a hinged plate, which firmly attached the camera to the basket, allowed him to take the striking aerial images in this collection.

The spectacle of ballooning

Although people were enthralled by air balloons, some balloonists suffered at the hands of crowds on their descent.

After his first ascent on 29 May 1882, Shadbolt wrote:

Came down in a field of green corn and experienced very rough treatment at the hands of the crowds who tore the balloon and Barker’s coat in addition.

Cecil Shadbolt, following his first balloon ascent on 29 May 1882

Almost all of Shadbolt’s early balloon launches were from sites in London where often excited crowds gathered in anticipation, including Alexandra Palace, Crystal Palace, and Lillie Bridge Park.

Earliest surviving aerial images

The Shadbolt Collection contains the earliest surviving aerial images of England, including this photograph of Stamford Hill in north London, taken during a balloon flight on 29 May 1882.

Shadbolt wrote an account of this flight, describing how ‘people walking on the pathways, although too small to be recognised, are nevertheless to be distinguished’. He also described a ‘curious cracking sensation in the ears’, his first experience of his ears popping during flight.

Mapping London from the air

The collection does not show London’s major historic landmarks; there is no coverage of the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, or the Houses of Parliament.

Instead, Shadbolt was capturing the suburban fringes of the city, or places undergoing great change, such as the Thames-side docks and wharfs.

In other words, he was trying to map the places which had transformed since the last Ordnance Survey map, using the airborne camera as an instrument of scientific observation and record.

The history of ballooning

The glass slides in the collection were used by Shadbolt in his ‘magic lantern lectures’. Called ‘Balloons and Ballooning: Upward and Onward’, these lectures detailed the history of attempts at flight and ballooning using his aerial images and beautiful hand-painted slides.

Included in the slides is a depiction of the first dramatic attempt to reach the highest altitude in a balloon. On 5 September 1862, Dr James Glaisher and balloonist Henry Coxwell ascended to 5 miles in just under 2 hours, higher than anyone had ever been before.

The extreme altitude left the pair unable to speak, see, or even properly move their limbs. They found it increasingly difficult to breathe. Glaisher fell unconscious and Coxwell, who had lost the use of his hands (which had frozen and turned black), managed to open the balloon’s valve by seizing the cord in his teeth, allowing the balloon to descend.

Miraculously, the pair landed safely, having reached somewhere between 30,000 and 37,000 feet.

Cecil Shadbolt’s final flight

This view of the Crystal Palace and Italianate Garden was taken from a tethered balloon flight and is the earliest known shot of the palace from the air.

During a later flight from Crystal Palace Park, on 29 June 1892, the gas-filled balloon tore apart and quickly crashed to the ground.

“Captain” William Dale, the owner of the balloon, was killed instantly. Cecil Shadbolt died later in hospital from his terrible injuries. He was just 33, with his ballooning career lasting only a decade.

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Further reading

• The Shadbolt Collection
• 9 Places That Tell the Story of Early Flight
• Search other aerial images of Britain

The Thames from Above