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Thomas Baldwin (Balloonist): Difference between revisions
→Baldwin's Flight
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Thomas Baldwin (1742-1804), tried, in 1783 after resigning from his position as a Haslingden curate, to fund the construction of a balloon by subscription, but was unable to raise enough money.
[[File:BaldwinF4.jpg|300px|thumb|left|Baldwin's illustration of his flight. Chester can be seen at the bottom left, and the rivers incluude the Gowy, Weaver and Mersey.]]
Thomas Baldwin was the son of the Rev. John Baldwin, rector at St Peter, Plemstall (see: [[Plemstall Church]]) and lived with his father at Hoole Hall, which the older Baldwin had built. He evidently conducted extensive research at his home, but this has in the past been badly reported, with suggestions having been made that he worked on helium balloons, despite the gas not having been available until over a century later. However correspondence with his friend Thomas Pennant shows that he had quite advanced plans for balloon construction at around the time that Jacques Charles was working on the same problems in the early 1780's.
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