William Alexander - Father of Brandon Alexander
Brandon’s father William was a prominent member of the Jewish community in Bristol. He was Hon. Consul to the Kingdom of Savoy, Imperial Russia and Hanover. He was buried in the Old Jewish cemetery in Bristol in 1874. The family were well known in the city for their charitable works and William’s daughters were said to be extremely stylish ladies.
Ballooning
Mr Brandon Alexander, who accompanied Mr Green in the balloon assent from the Clifton Zoological Gardens, on Wednesday, has written an account of his aerial voyage. He says - "Probably it will stagger your credulity when I tell you that Weston-super-Mare, and the city of Gloucester, were distinctly to be seen, and were sharply defined under the setting sun at the same moment; it is, however a fact, to the truth of which Mr Green himself will bear testimony. I have been fortunate enough to gaze upon some of the finest scenery in the world. Sunset from the top of the Great Pyramid, ad sunrise from the summit of Mount Etna, trust me, are two sublime sights not easily paralleled, but it is no, too much to affirm that the solemn and resplendent panorama stretched out so many thousand feet beneath our car. Wednesday, was incomparably more superb than anything I had experienced, and, perhaps as glorious as any vision that could enter the conception of a painter or a poet. After a voyage of about an hour, which to me, was the perfection of all human enjoyment, except that I was not permitted to smoke, the only privilege wnating to crown my felicity, we pitched in a meadow between Whitchurch and Knowle, not at Keynsham as was represented. Nothing could be easier or more comfortable than our descent: nobody more admirably cool and deliberate than Mr Green in the arduous pilotage of his monster machine through the skies. Nervousness I felt none; but I am willing to confess that once or twice, and especially when we were cutting through God's element with astonishing rapidity, a peculiar sensation pervaded my structure, as though I had eaten something out of season which I had much better have left alone."