Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Green, Charles
GREEN, CHARLES (1785–1870), aeronaut, son of Thomas Green, fruiterer, of Willow Walk, Goswell Street, London, who died in May 1850, aged 88, was born at 92 Goswell Road, London, on 31 Jan. 1785, and on leaving school was taken into his father's business. His first ascent was from the Green Park, London, on 19 July 1821, by order of the government, at the coronation of George IV, in a balloon filled with carburetted hydrogen gas, he being the first person who ascended with a balloon so inflated. After that time he made 526 ascents. On 16 Aug. 1828 he ascended from the Eagle tavern, City Road, on the back of his pony, and after being up for half an hour descended at Beckenham in Kent. In 1836 he constructed the Great Nassau balloon for Gye and Hughes, proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens, from whom he subsequently purchased it for 500l., and on 9 Sept. in that year made the first ascent with it from Vauxhall Gardens, in company with eight persons, and, after remaining in the air about one hour and a half, descended at Cliffe, near Gravesend. On 21 Sept. he made a second ascent, accompanied by eleven persons, and descended at Beckenham in Kent. He also made four other ascents with it from Vauxhall, including the celebrated continental ascent, undertaken at the expense of Robert Hollond, M.P. for Hastings, who, with Monck Mason, accompanied him. They left Vauxhall Gardens at 1.30 p.m. on 7 Nov. 1836, and, crossing the channel from Dover the same evening, descended the next day, at 7 a.m., at Weilburg in Nassau, Germany, having travelled altogether about five hundred miles in eighteen hours. On 19 Dec. 1836 he again went up from Paris with six persons, and on 9 Jan. 1837 with eight persons. The Great Nassau ascended from Vauxhall Gardens on 24 July, Green having with him Edward Spencer and Robert Cocking. At a height of five thousand feet Cocking liberated himself from the balloon, and descending in a parachute of his own construction into a field on Burnt Ash Farm, Lee, was killed on reaching the ground (Times, 25, 26, 27, and 29 July 1837). The balloon came down the same evening near Town Mailing, Kent, and it was not until the next day that Green heard of the death of his companion.
In 1838 Green made two experimental ascents from Vauxhall Gardens at the expense of George Rush of Elsenham Hall, Essex. The first took place on 4 Sept., Rush and Edward Spencer accompanying the aeronaut. They attained the elevation of 19,335 feet, and descended at Thaxted in Essex. The second experiment was made on 10 Sept., and was for the purpose of ascertaining the greatest altitude that could be attained with the Great Nassau balloon inflated with carburetted hydrogen gas and carrying two persons only. Green ascended with Rush for his companion, and they reached the elevation of 27,146 feet, or about five miles and a quarter, as indicated by the barometer, which fell from 30·50 to 11, the thermometer falling from 61° to 5°, or 27° below freezing point. On several occasions this balloon was carried by the upper currents between eighty and one hundred miles in the hour. On 31 March 1841 Green ascended from Hastings, accompanied by Charles Frederick William, duke of Brunswick, and in five hours descended at Neufchatel, about ten miles south-west of Boulogne. His last and farewell public ascent took place from Vauxhall Gardens on Monday, 13 Sept. 1852. In 1840 he had propounded his ideas about crossing the Atlantic in a balloon, and six years later made a proposal for carrying out such an undertaking.
Many of his, ascents were made alone, as when he went up from Boston in June 1846, and again in July when he made a night ascent from Vauxhall. During his career he had many dangerous experiences. In 1823, when ascending from Cheltenham, accompanied by Mr. Griffiths, some malicious person partly severed the ropes which attached the car to the balloon, so that in starting the car broke away from the balloon, and its occupants had to take refuge on the hoop of the balloon, in which position they had a perilous journey and a most dangerous descent, when they were both injured. This is the only case on record of such a balloon voyage. In 1827 Green made his sixty-ninth ascent, from Newbury in Berkshire, accompanied by H. Simmons of Reading, a deaf and dumb gentleman, when a violent thunderstorm threatened the safety of the balloon. On 17 Aug. 1841, on going up from Cremorne with Mr. Macdonnell, a jerk of the grappling iron upset the car and went near to throwing out the aeronaut and his companion, Green was the first to demonstrate, in 1821, that coal-gas was applicable to the inflation of balloons. Before his time pure hydrogen gas was used, a substance very expensive, the generation of which was so slow that two days were required to fill a large balloon, and then the gas was excessively volatile. He was also the inventor of 'the guide-rope,' a rope trailing from the car, which could be lowered or raised by means of a windlass and used to regulate the ascent and descent of the balloon. After living in retirement for many years he died suddenly of heart disease at his residence, Ariel Villa, 51 Tuffnell Park, Holloway, London, 26 March 1870.
He married Martha Morrell, who died at North Hill, Highgate, London. His son, George Green, who had made eighty-three ascents with the Nassau balloon, died at Belgrave Villa, Holloway, London, on 10 Feb. 1864, aged 57.
[Mason's Account of Aeronautical Expedition from London to Weilburg, 1836; Mason's Aeronautica, 1838, pp. 1-98, with portrait; Hatton Turnor's Astra Castra, 1865, pp. 129 et seq.,520, 527. 529, with two portraits; Era, 3 April 1870, p. 11; Illustrated London News, 16 April 1870. pp. 401-2, with portrait; Times, 30 March 1870, p. 10; The Balloon, 1845. i. 11 et seq.; the Rev. J. Richardson's Recollections, 1855, ii. 153-5.]