CARDIFFREMEMBERED Teenager Louisa’s first flight in balloon ended in tragedy

EVERY now and again I visit Cardiff’s Cathays Cemetery and seek out the headstone of little Louisa Maud Evans.

It reads: “In Memory of Louisa Maud Evans Aged 14½ years who met her death on July 21st, 1896.

“On that day, she ascended in a balloon from Cardiff, and descended by a parachute into the Bristol Channel.

“Her body was found washed ashore near Nash (Mon) on the 24th day of July, and was buried here, on the 29th.

“To commemorate the sad ending of a young life, this memorial is erected by public subscription.”

It goes on to read: “Brave woman, yet in years a child, dark death closed here thy heaven ward flight.

“God grant thee, pure and undefiled. To reach at last the Light of Light.”

The story of Louisa from Bristol is told in Sharon Wright’s excellent Balloonomania Belles: Daredevil Divas Who Took To The Sky.

It was at the great Cardiff Industrial and Maritime Exhibition of 1896, held in Cathays Park, that 14-year-old Louisa billed as Madamoiselle Albertina was persuaded to take what was her first and last flight in a balloon by Auguste Gaudron.

We learn that the waving Louisa seemed set for success as the balloon climbed high in the blustery conditions but a witness with a telescope was said to have seen her hit the water on her back and that she had appeared lifeless as she sank beneath the waves. Cardiff, we learn, went into shock and wild stories circulated for days such as that she had been picked up by