James Glaisher; Henry Tracey Coxwell

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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James Glaisher; Henry Tracey Coxwell

by Negretti & Zambra
albumen carte-de-visite, late 1862
3 1/2 in. x 2 1/2 in. (90 mm x 62 mm)
Given by John Herbert Dudley Ryder, 5th Earl of Harrowby, 1957
Photographs Collection
NPG x22561

On display in Room 22 on Floor 2 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sittersback to top

Artistback to top

  • Negretti & Zambra (active 1850-1898), Photographers. Artist or producer associated with 14 portraits.

This portraitback to top

On 5 September 1862 the intrepid balloonists and meteorologists Glaisher and Coxwell ascended from Wolverhampton in their gas balloon to a height of 37,000 feet, the greatest height ever reached by balloon. Glaisher lost consciousness and Coxwell, who had lost the use of his hands, managed just in time to pull the valve-cord with his teeth, and brought the balloon down at Ludlow, dropping 19,000 feet in fifteen minutes.
This tiny photograph almost certainly commemorates the record-breaking ascent, and is an example of the inventive skills of the photographers Henry Negretti (1818-79) and Joseph Warren Zambra (born 1822) of Hatton Garden, Cornhill and Regent Street, London, who superimposed an image of the aviators in their basket on an aerial back-drop, and painted in the superstructure of the balloon. A year later Negretti himself made with Coxwell the first aerial trip for purposes of photography.
In 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Coxwell went to manage the Prussian fleet of war-balloons, while in later life Glaisher devoted his time increasingly to astronomy. (from Rogers, Malcolm Camera Portraits, edited to correct the erroneous reference to it being a hot air balloon)

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Rogers, Malcolm, Camera Portraits, 1989 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 October 1989 - 21 January 1990), p. 63 Read entry

    On 5 September 1862 the intrepid balloonists and meteorologists Glaisher and Coxwell ascended from Wolverhampton in their gas balloon to a height of 37,000 feet, the greatest height ever reached by balloon. Glaisher lost consciousness and Coxwell, who had lost the use of his hands, managed just in time to pull the valve-cord with his teeth, and brought the balloon down at Ludlow, dropping 19,000 feet in fifteen minutes.

    This tiny photograph almost certainly commemorates the record-breaking ascent, and is an example of the inventive skills of the photographers Henry Negretti (1818-79) and Joseph Warren Zambra (born 1822) of Hatton Garden, Cornhill and Regent Street, London, who superimposed an image of the aviators in their basket on an aerial back-drop, and painted in the superstructure of the balloon. A year later Negretti himself made with Coxwell the first aerial trip for purposes of photography.

    In 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Coxwell went to manage the Prussian fleet of war-balloons, while in later life Glaisher devoted his time increasingly to astronomy.

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1862back to top

Current affairs

The Lancashire cotton famine, a depression in the north-west textile industry brought about by the American civil war, reaches its climax. With large numbers of mills closing after Confederate blockades halted cotton supplies, many Lancashire families were in receipt of relief.

Art and science

Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard carry out the first pasteurisation tests, the process of heating liquids at 55 degree Celsius or higher for short periods of time, destroying viruses and harmful organisms such as bacteria and yeast. .
Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables is published, covering the Napoleonic wars. It traces the ex-convict Jean Valjean's character against wider questions of social and political justice, duty and love.

International

Otto Eduard Leopold Bismarck becomes Minister-President of Prussia, appointed by Wilhelm I after the liberal Diet refused to authorise funding for a proposed reorganisation of the army. Bismarck, intent on maintaining royal supremacy, engineers the Unification of Germany during his time in office.
John Hanning Speke claims to have found the source of the Nile, proving that the Victoria Nile issued from the north end of lake Victoria, over Ripon Falls.

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