See also James Whitbread Lee Glaisher, the mathematician

James Glaisher FRS (7 April 1809 — 7 February 1903), was an English meteorologist and aeronaut.

Born in Rotherhithe, the son of a London watchmaker, Glaisher was a Junior assistant at the Cambridge Observatory from 1833 to 1835 before moving to the Royal Greenwich Observatories, where he served as Superintendent of the Department of Meteorology and Magnetism at Greenwich for thirty-four years.

In 1845, Glaisher published his dew point tables, for the measurement of humidity.

Glaisher was a founder member of the Meteorological Society (1850), and the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain (1866).

He is most famous, however, as a pioneering balloonist. Between 1862 and 1866, usually with Henry Tracey Coxwell as his co-pilot, Glaisher made numerous ascents in order to measure the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere at its highest levels. His ascent on September 5, 1862 broke the world record for altitude, but he passed out around 8,800 metres before a reading could be taken. Estimates suggest that he rose to more than 9,500 metres and as much as 10,900 metres above sea-level.

Glaisher lived at 22 Dartmouth Hill, Blackheath, London, where there is a blue plaque in his memory.

He had ten children, including the mathematician James Whitbread Lee Glaisher (1848—1928).

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