I was going thru the history section when I noticed reference to the first parachuting fatality, Robert Cocking, in 1837. Some of the finer points of Cocking's jump were interesting enuf for me to remember them.

Cocking was 25 when he observed the first parachute jump in England, made by Jacques Garnerin in 1802. He was intrigued by the jump and spent years working on a design that would not oscillate the way the Frenchman's had.

In 1837 when he was 61 he got Vauxhall Gardens to sponsor his chute - it was 33 feet in diameter, framed by a metal hoop 107 feet 4 inches in circumference and weighed 233 lbs.

The day of Cocking's jump a leading aeronautics authority sent a letter to the 'Morning Herald' reading 'I have no hesitation in predicting that one of two events must inevitably take place... either the parachute will come to the ground with a degree of force we have before shown to be incompatible with the final preservation of the individual....or it must give way beneath the undue exercise of force...'

As Cocking went up in the balloon before a crowd of thousands, the band played the National Anthem.

As soon as Cocking cut himself loose, the frame of the parachute broke apart. He was found in the wreckage on Burnt Ash Hill near Lee Green, Kent and died within minutes.

Afterwards, Cocking's body and his parachute were taken to the Tiger's Head public house nearby where they were exhibited to the public at sixpence each, tickets provided at the bar. Later after protestations from the manager of Vauxhall Gardens the peepshow was shut down.

If you're goin' in, you might as well be taken out to the bar after!:+ :+ :+

Skypuppy BASE92