3-070-487 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Fatal Disaster with a Balloon: Mr. Walter Powell, M.P. for Malmesbury, 1881. Engraving from a photograph by Messrs. Dickinsons. 'The fate of Mr. Walter Powell, who, with another gentleman, accompanied Captain James Templer, in charge of a balloon lent by the War Department to the Meteorological Society, on Saturday, the 10th December, is a matter of sincere regret... Mr. Powell, who was unmarried, had, during the past eighteen months, taken a great interest in ballooning, and made frequent ascents. He lately caused a very fine balloon, of silk, to be constructed at the Alexandra Palace for his private use. With this he repeatedly ascended from Newport, where he had private gas-works established for the purpose of inflating his balloon; and he more than once crossed the Bristol Channel with it through the air...There are rumours of a balloon having been seen off the north coast of Spain. A fisherman in the Channel Islands thought he saw a balloon floating in the sea, but it proved to be a dead whale. The latest news, on Wednesday last, is that the mahogany frame of a thermometer, believed to have been carried in the lost balloon, has drifted ashore at Chesil Cove, near Portland; and a hat has been picked up near Bridport'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.