1899: New Zealand’s First Aviation Fatality
November 2, 2023
By AHNZ
Today in history, 2 November, 1899, at Christchurch’s Lancaster Park, 25yo Captain Lorraine blew out to sea in his balloon never to be seen again. I’m delighted as a freedom lover that a man could take his life in his own hands without being stopped. And, that he could be ‘captain’ without some government or institution monopolising this title.
Lorraine’s physical courage in 1899 fit right in with the spirit of the age; Boer War Honour Culture (1899-1904.) A new generation of our men and women demanded brave and risky acts of themselves and each other. They were just getting started and perhaps this vigorous spirit could only end one way: Going to war. This we did, most vociferously, in the Second Anglo-Boer War. Ref. 1899: Boer War, AHNZ
Lisa Truttman writes of this era and event as the “spirit of the fin de siècle age of the late 1890s, when all seemed possible as far as progress and achievement was concerned.” The same era, just 10 years before the ballooning catastrophe, former Prime Minister Julius Vogel wrote a futuristic novel entitled Anno Domini 2000 all about the ‘futurama’ to come. Supposedly our Anglo Culture was filled with purpose and self-confidence, dominated the world, and had set a new high point in the history of creation.
Anarchist History of New Zealand takes a different view of this time period. The Victorian British Empire was confident, outgoing, expansionist, and certain at first but this time had now passed. From about 1870 to 1901 the late Empire had lost its authentic self-image and frantically over-compensated by employing a contrived caricature version of itself. The grandiose replacement identity to being British was recognised and called Jingoism. Ref. 1897: The British Zollverein, AHNZ
David Mahoney, and Aucklander, had puffed himself up in accord with the spirit of this age as ‘Captain Lorraine’. His lighter-than-air aircraft was similarly given a nominal promotion by being called Empress. Essentially a traveling carnival performer, Mahoney/Lorraine had toured the world with basic trapeze performance except that he did so high in the sky. In 1899 Mahoney came back to New Zealand to see family, perform, and marry an attractive young lady whose face was used in his publicity material.
“He was a parachutist rather than a balloonist, using a balloon to ascend to a height from which he could drop, supported by the parachute, performing gymnastics with a trapeze on the way down. When he arrived back in New Zealand in late 1898, “Captain Charles Lorraine” had been doing his act in the Northern Hemisphere for five years, so reports tell us. ” – Timespanner (2012)
“On 2nd November 1899, at Christchurch’s Lancaster Park around 4pm, with his Christchurch born wife close by, the Captain prepared to put on a performance. With a ‘Now, then, gentlemen, let her go,’ he got off the ground with his usual splendour and grace – but things soon went wrong. ” – Discover the Delights of Peeling Back History
“It was the brutal realities of the Boer War that had diverted men’s admiration from ‘art of art’s sake’ to that of ‘fighting for fighting’s sake.'” – Francis Gribble
Mahoney’s ‘stage’ costume gimmick consisted of military garb but he had no more official military position than Sgt. Slaughter did in the lates 1980s ‘professional wrestling’ craze. Or, for that matter, the New Zealand pair of wrestlers, Luke Williams and Butch Miller, who pretended to be Bushwhackers from the high Appalachians of America. Or, Uncle Scrim in the 1930s when he started flying planes and dressing up in uniform as the self-appointed New Zealand Air Force chaplain. It’s all a show. Ref. 1930s: I’m envious of Uncle Scrim, AHNZ
Captain Lorraine did, however, hold the appointment of “aeronaut to the Alexandra Palace” and of “military aeronaut to the 1st Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment” according to the Observer. If that’s official then it must be that Mahoney paid for this patronage out of his performance takings. Nobody could seriously think that a Palace or an army regiment needed a trapeze artist. Did they? On the other hand, the ‘kayfabe’ of professional wrestling had a good run for many years before it became clear it was all fake.
Despite having many performances under his belt, Mahoney was just 25 when he died. Born in 1875, he was of the generation of Generation AHNZ identifies as the Vogel Boomers. They were the Baby Boomers of their day and in adulthood presided over a ‘Woke’ Awakening period that subverted the conservative and traditional culture of their parents to a point fringing on deviance. The generation is named after Julius Vogel who created the economic conditions for it, egged it on with his 1889 novel, and exacerbated New Zealand’s depression with his deficit-financed ‘mini boom’. Other Vogel Boomers include Captain Blanche Lough and Secretary Anna Burn who also dressed up and performed acts of display with technology: bicycles. I think these Physical Culture women with their men’s trousers and masculine mimicry shoulder pads provoked a response from men. How can a young man distinguish himself as masculine when the normal way is already being signaled by women? He has to go even further by pulling risky stunts to out-do the females. This probably explains the men who led the way in skateboarding and bungee jumping crazes but when women start to join in there’s only one place he can go that she cannot follow: to war. Ref. 1893: Atalanta’s Britches, AHNZ
Others call Mahoney’s death a tragedy and for him it certainly qualified as a lonely and desperate one of those. Perhaps, though, not a tragedy for culture at large if it could learn from his stupid technical mistake. Or, better still, to focus less on elaborate circus tricks with bells on and return to more sober past-times.
Once at height, Mahoney’s only way down was via a parachute which was also his money-maker as he would perform fancy swinging acts all the way back down to the ground. The Empress itself, relieved of the aeronaught’s mass was weighted at the top as to rotate 180 degrees top-to-tail. Once inverted all of the gas would escape and the balloon could fall down to be retrieved for next time. Mahoney died because his chute became fowled during the ascent. Records show it was not the first time. He had managed lucky escapes before. Perhaps a spare emergency parachute would have added too much weight so he depended on just the one. Mahoney and Empress now drifted away from Lancaster Part airspace, over the Port Hills, and out to sea to die!
If only Mahoney had carried a knife or even a light razor blade as insurance he could have cut an escape hole in Empress and come back down to earth that way. A simple precaution. Instead, watched by thousands, he was powerless. Not giving up, Captain Lorraine scrambled up the outer netting in an attempt to put enough mass at the top of Empress to invert her as to deflate and descend. This evidently failed. David Bateman’s 2005 New Zealand Encylopedia says Mahoney made a water landing and drowned trying to swim back to Canterbury. However, sources discovered on Timespanner’s post say “.. one witness later told the newspapers that, through a telescope, once the balloon had been blown by the wind over the harbour and heading out to sea, he saw Lorraine’s form lashed firmly to the netting as he tried desperately to deflate the balloon without the use of a knife. When he succeeded, the plunge of around 3000 feet was so sudden that the impact with the water probably killed him outright.”
The effect on Cantabrians at this moral lesson must have been very sobering. It’s as good a place as any to mark off the turning from an Age of Decadence to to an age of K-selected masculinity as evidenced by of Boer War II and Victoria’s Jingoistic 60th Jubilee.
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Image ref. Mahoney’s Christchurch act weeks before his final ever. Cash Collection. Lynda Sadler, Christchurch City Libraries. Color by AHNZ (but what colour was the Empress balloon really?)
Image ref. All dressed up as if official. Mahoney in his Captain Lorraine costume. genealogyinvestigations.co.nz from uncredited book
Note: You can ask permission to use the Cash Collection photo from Lucille Cash who kindly granted it to AHNZ
Note: Hi I am Barry’s wife, Lucille Cash, thanks for your email. Sadly Barry passed away in 2014 but I can give my permission for you to use the photo. I still own the original copy.
I would be interested to see what you do with adding a bit of colour. Kind regards, Lucille; email to AHNZ (2023)
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