The Fanciful Flights of the Alcoholic Aeronaut

n                                    You’d imagine from reading aboutnHugh Miller, Alexander Blackwell, Andrew Bell, Colin MacFarquhar and William Smellie that the production of eccentric writers was once something of ancottage industry in Scotland. Add to that list then the name of James Tytler. 

n

n

n

nTytler was born in Fearn, Angus on December 17^th 1745, and had annexcellent education at Edinburgh University, preparing him to follow his fathernas a Calvinist minister. James, however, preferred to study medicine and spentna year as ship’s surgeon on board a Leith whaler the Royal Bounty. He marriednearly and began a family, which he tried to support by opening a pharmacy, butnthe business failed and he fled to England to avoid his creditors (shades ofnBlackwell’s story). With five children, he returned to Edinburgh, where henbegan to write, mostly low-paid hackwork, but failed again with works of hisnown. Eventually his wife left him, and he spent time in prison for debt beforenhe was eventually appointed as editor of the second edition of the EncyclopaedianBritannica for the sum of sixteen shillings per week. It was said he couldnprécis an article as quickly as another man could read it, and he produced annenormous amount of articles, using an upturned barrel as his desk. It wasnwhilst editing the Encyclopaedia that Tytler read about the hot air ballooningnfeats of the Montgolfier brothers in France and determined to emulate theirnexploits by building a balloon of his own. He built a model, which he displayednto the public for 6d. entrance fee, and used the scant funds to build anfull-sized balloon. 

n

n

n

nHis first inflation was done beneath the dome of the partlynbuilt Register House in Princes Street, and his first tethered flight wasnadvertised at Comely Garden on August 6^th 1784, but either adversenweather conditions or technical problems halted the attempt; a mob attacked thenballoon and the press attacked Tytler. Undeterred, he tried again on August 25^thnand floated a few feet above the ground for a short while whilst tethered tonthe ground. Two days later, wearing only a cork jacket for protection, Tytlernclimbed into the little wicker basket and lit the stove beneath the forty footnbarrel of his invention and the Great Edinburgh Fire Balloon was untied,nsoaring to the height of 350 feet. 

n

n

n

nIt carried James for over half a mile, anflight ‘most agreeable with no giddiness’, before landing near the village ofnRestalrig. Tytler was feted as a hero and four days later, before an enormousnpaying audience at Comely Garden and on Arthur’s Seat, he made another ascent,na short ‘leap’ of 100 feet over the pavilion, before slowly descending again,nmuch to the delight of the spectators. He was the first man to fly in thenBritish sky. With typical bad luck, another attempt in October failed when henjumped from the basket and the capricious press turned against him, deemingnthat enough time had been ‘trifled away on this misshapen smoke-bag’, andndamned the former ‘toast of Edinburgh’ as a ‘coward’. 

n

n

n

nThe debts incurred by hisnballooning adventures led Tytler back into bankruptcy, a position not helpednwhen his wife sued him for divorce on the grounds that he had had two daughtersnby another woman. He took to travelling around Scotland and northern England,nearning what little money he could from his not inconsiderable repertory ofnskills – writing, selling medicine, song writing, bagpipe playing, poetry andnpublishing. His radical political writing led to him being outlawed in absentianfor seditious libel by the Scottish High Court in 1793 and he fled, first tonBelfast and then in 1795 to Salem, Massachusetts, where he edited the SalemnRegister, published other works and sold medicine. A life-long alcoholic, henleft his house, drunk, on January 9^th 1804 and his body wasnrecovered from the sea two days later.

n

nRobert Burns described Britain’s firstnaeronaut as “…an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name ofnTytler commonly known by the name of “Balloon Tytler”, from hisnhaving projected a balloon, a mortal who, though he drudges about Edinburgh asna common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles asnunlike as George-by-the-Grace-of-God and Solomon-the-Son-of-David; yet thatnsame unknown drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot’snpompous Encyclopaedia Britannica, which he composed at half-a-guinea anweek.”

n