Category Archives: Local interest

Summer Programme update

Thursday May 12^th at Our Community Centre – a talk by Silvia Joinson – “Elizabeth of Bohemia”. Usual time of 7pm for 7.30pm. Free to Members. Visitors £4.00

Saturday June 18^th. Visit to Mapledurham to see The House, The Watermill and the Turbine. Also to possibly stroll around the Home and Garden Show being held on site over that weekend. Make your own way to Mapledurham House to gather as a group for 1.30pm. No guided tour, but we can enjoy each other’s company as we make our way around the venue. Car users please offer lifts to those without transport. Teas available on site. Cost is £9.50. Seniors at £8.00. The fair is an additional £4.50.

Tuesday July 5^th. Visit Radley College for a guided tour by Clare Sargent. Make your own way to Radley College for a prompt start at 2pm. Car users please offer lifts to those without transport. Cost £5.00.

See “UPCOMING EVENTS” for further details and directions.

Local Oxfordshire talks – April 2016

Information provided by the OLHA (www.olha.org.uk)

1^st – Benson – Keith Baldwin “Protecting the Queen (stories about those who guard her Majesty)”. Parish Hall, 7:30pm.

4^th – Chalgrove – Graham Keevill “The Architecture and Assets of St Mary’s Church, Chalgrove”. St Mary’s Church (newly reopened following nine months of conservation and refurbishment), 7:45pm.

5^th – Henley-on-Thames – Stuart Foreman “Archaeology of the Jubilee River”. King’s Arms Barn, King’s Road, 7:45pm.

5^th – Hook Norton – Kate Tiller “Chapel and Community in Oxfordshire”. Baptist Church Hall, Netting Street, 7:30pm.

6^th – Otmoor – Annual General Meeting followed by a short film. Islip Village Hall, 8:00pm.

7^th – Eynsham – AGM and refreshments, plus Robert Stewart Parker “Analysis of an Ancient Egyptian Papyrus”. St Leonard’s Church Hall, Thames Street, 7:30pm.

11^th – Chipping Norton – Donald Ratcliffe “Failing on the Frontier – An English Family Tries America”. Methodist Room, West Street, 7:30pm.

11^th – Goring & Streatley – Simon Wenham “The Rise of Leisure on the Thames”. Goring Village Hall, 8:00pm.

11^th– Radley – Jenny Lee “Men of Radley who served King and Country and died in WWI”. Primary School Hall, 7:30pm.

12^th– Marcham – Bob Heath-Whyte “Medieval Wall Paintings in St Mary’s Church, Chalgrove”. Marcham church, 7:45pm.

12^th – Thame – Stephen Barker “The Ox and Bucks on the Somme 1916”. Church Barns, Church Road, 7:30pm.

13^th – Deddington – Don Ratcliffe “Hook Norton Lunatic Asylums”. Windmill Centre, Hempton Road, 7:30pm.

13^th – Wallingford – Katharine Keats-Rohan “Coronation Street: William the Conqueror and Wallingford 1066”. St Mary’s Church, 8:00pm.

13^th – Wolvercote – Ann Spokes Symonds “The History of Wolvercote Cemetery”. Village Hall, 7:30pm.

14^th – Banbury – Norman Hudson “The historic country house in the post war years and now – its survival and future”. Banbury Museum, Spiceball Park Road, 7:30pm.

16^th – Oxfordshire Gardens Trust – Visit to Radley College near Abingdon. 2:00pm.

18^th – Adderbury – AGM and Phi Mansel “Face the Music”. Methodist Chapel School Room, Chapel Lane, 7:30pm.

18^th – Kennington – Gregory Stores “Life in the Medieval Monastic Cloister”. Methodist Church, Upper Road, 7:45pm.

19^th – Iffley – Vivien Greene Memorial Lecture, ticket only, Janina Ramirez “Saint Hilda of Whitby”. Church Hall, Church Way, 7:30pm.

19^th – Clanfield and Bampton – Anthony Hall “The History of Champagne”. Carter Institute, Clanfield, 7:30pm.

20^th – Littlemore – Bill King “On two wheels: the fascinating story of the bicycle”. Giles Road Community Centre, 7:30pm.

20^th – Vale of White Horse Industrial Archaeology Group – Phil Coldwell “Malta to Constantinople 1915”. Denchworth Village Hall, 7:30pm.

21^st – Abingdon – Joan Dils “Reflections on aspects of Abingdon society c.1550-c.1700”. Northcourt Centre, Northcourt Road, 7:45pm.

21^st – Longworth – Alan Turton “The Mary Rose”. Southmoor & Kingston Bagpuize Village Hall, 7:30pm.

21^st – Sibfords – Stephen Barker “The Ox and Bucks on the Somme”. Sibford Gower village hall, 8:00pm.

21^st – Thame – Outing to Chedworth Roman Villa, Cirencester (NT).

21^st – Wychwoods – Julie Ann Godson “The Water Gypsy: how a Thames fishergirl became a viscountess”. Milton or Shipton-under-Wychwood village hall (tbc), 7:30pm.

25^th – Oxfordshire Family History Society – Colin Chapman “Detained in Britain 1914–1920 – Germanic Internees and POW Camps in Oxfordshire”. Exeter Hall, Oxford Road, Kidlington, 8:00pm.

26^th – Hanney – Jane Harrison “The East Oxford Archaeology Project”. War Memorial Hall, 8:00pm.

26^th– Kidlington – Mike Payne “History of Pinewood Studios”. St John Ambulance Hall, High Street, 7:50pm.

27^th – Dorchester – Anne Ransome “Co-operative Societies in Oxfordshire from 1853 to the present day”. Village Hall, 7:30pm.

28^th – Aston – AGM followed by Paul Sargent “Dinosaurs of Oxfordshire”. Fellowship Centre, Cote Road, 7:30pm.

The First Englishman to Fly

On March 10th we had a return visit from local author and comic writer Richard O. Smith to talk about “The First Englishman to Fly”. The subject was James Sadler (b.1753), whose family ran a pastry shop in Oxford High Street. James, who appears to have had no formal education, emerged somewhat mysteriously as a man of science and technology in his late twenties. He left sparse written evidence of his exploits, having in the words of close friends “little grammar” but biographers including Richard have made good use of contemporary letters and accounts, including local press such as Jacksons Journal in Oxford, to piece together his achievements and adventures.

The first hot air balloon ascent is attributed to the Montgolfier brothers in France in 1783. It is not, however, generally known that they wrongly believed the driving force to be the smoke from the fire below the balloon. They were paper manufacturers and had seen small pieces of the material rising up their chimney in the smoke. Sadler worked out that hot air was the driving force and he designed and built the first English balloon. He made his first flight in 1784 from a site near the Botanic Garden and landed safely in Water Eaton.

Although we are all familiar with modern hot air balloons and their propane burners, the pioneers soon resorted to hydrogen (made by adding acid to iron filings). James Sadler himself worked out that the gas is fourteen times lighter than air. He became a national figure, having organised a series of well advertised balloon events around Britain including one in Manchester in1785. A new Square in the town has been recently named after him.

In the same year Sadler gave up ballooning and went to work for the Admiralty in Portsmouth. Here he redesigned and improved naval guns with such success that Nelson declared that he would have as many of Mr Sadler’s guns as possible for his ships. After twenty five years Sadler fell out with his employers and returned to ballooning. His comeback flight included a caged cat which was returned to the Oxford owner after a safe descent at Headington. In1811 he took off from Birmingham in a force seven gale heading north. He eventually landed in Boston Linconshire, remarking that even travelling in such a high wind he could maintain a single flame.

Our speaker grew up in Linconshire and his interest in Sadler was kindled by reading an account of this flight in the Boston library. Richard also illustrated the “ balloonamania” which gripped Regency England with balloon hats for men and women and the widespread use of balloon motifs on crockery and tankards.

James Sadler had many ballooning adventures during this period including a night crossing of the Bristol Channel and a crossing of the Irish Sea. He survived them all and finally died in 1828 aged seventy five. His son Wyndham was less fortunate and perished in Blackburn having flown into a mill chimney.