One of the marvels in the first part of season 3 of Bridgerton is an innovation fair with, at its centre, a balloon. During this era, people were fascinated by flight and the skies, and balloon flight was still very new.

The first recorded flight in Europe happened at Versailles on 19^th September 1783, when a balloon made by paper manufacturers, the Montgolfier brothers, was sent up in front of Louis XVI: it was not manned, however. Instead, a sheep, duck and a cockerel travelled just over 3km, and after the successful flight, were given the honour of being put in the palace menagerie.

The first manned flight occurred just over two months later, manned by Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d’Arlandes, in a hot air balloon again made by the Montgolfier brothers.

The first person to fly a hot air balloon in the UK was the Scottish James Tyler, who flew from Edinburgh in 1784. Later that year, the first person to fly over England was an Italian diplomat and famed daredevil named Vincenzo Lunardi, who flew over London, with people supposedly clamouring to see the flight from the top of St Paul’s Cathedral. He took with him a dog, a cat and a caged pigeon, and flew a total of 24 miles into Hertfordshire.

And it would be the following year, in 1785, when the channel would be crossed between England and France, by a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Blanchard and an American named John Jeffries. The technological possibilities by the Regency period must have seemed so exciting: no wonder the whole of the London ton turned out to see the flight in Bridgerton.

You can hear about balloon flight in my Instagram reel below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dr Lizzie Rogers (@historylizzie)