Richard Crosbie
Crosbie, Richard, aeronaut, born in the County of Wicklow in 1755, was one of the first if not the first native of the British islands to make a balloon ascent. [The first ascent ever made was by Pilatre de Rozier, in a balloon of Mongolfier's, at Paris, 21st November 1783; and the first in England was by Lunardi, an Italian, in London, on the 21st September 1784.] Crosbie was of a mechanical genius, and reading of Mongolfier's success, and having made preliminary experiments by sending up cats in cars attached to small balloons, he ascended on 19th January 1785, from Ranelagh Gardens, near Dublin, and descended safely on the North Strand. The Annual Register says: "The balloon and chariot were beautifully painted, and the arms of Ireland emblazoned on them in superior elegance of taste. . . His aerial dress consisted of a robe of oiled silk, lined with white fur, his waistcoat and breeches in one, of white satin quilted, and morocco boots, and a montero cap of leopard skin. The Duke of Leinster, Lord Charlemont, Right Hon. George Ogle, . . attended with white staves, as regulators of the business of the day." We are not furnished with any particulars of Crosbie's life, further than that he devoted attention to aeronautics.
Sources
7. Annual Register (1785). London, 1756-1877.
338. Walker's Hibernian Magazine (1785). Dublin, 1771-1811.
Walker, Joseph C, see Nos. 20, 108.