2 - One Man's Balloon Madness

Summary

‘the business of the biographer is often … to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies’

Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, no. 60

IN FEBRUARY 1784 William Windham's head was full of balloons. An interesting thirty-four year old, Windham came from an old Norfolk family [Figure 4]. After extensive travels and a period in his local militia, he had begun a career in politics. In 1783 he had been appointed by the Fox-North coalition to the post of chief secretary to the Irish viceroy, Lord Northington. He served ably for a few months – he was a lifelong supporter of the cause of Catholic emancipation – before resigning on grounds of ill-health. In April 1784 he returned to politics as MP for Norwich, one of the few Foxite candidates to be re-elected. In February he was mostly in London, dividing his time between seeing people, going to the theatre – he was friends with Sarah Siddons – skating, which he did rather well, and scholarly pursuits. Always a man with a book in his pocket, Windham enjoyed mathematics and the classics. Having just started a diary, he confided to it, like many eighteenth-century people, a sense he was not getting enough done. On 7 February 1784 he wrote:‘Did not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more than indulge in reveries about balloons.’1 The day was not a vacuous one: he called on Sarah Siddons, then on Fox; he had intelligent company at dinner, in the persons of Edmund Burke, Samuel Horsley and Sir Joshua Reynolds, all members of the Literary Club, along with Samuel Johnson whom Windham fervently admired; and in the late evening, Mrs Siddons and Mrs Kemble paid him a visit. In the pattern of this sociable day, what did it mean to Windham to spend two hours in balloon reveries?

To understand what Windham represented in balloon madness in 1784, his diary gives us some help. Diarists use diaries differently and not everything that matters is written down.