The nineteenth century was an age of paradox for the history of rocketry, a century that stood midway between pyrotechnic spectacle and scientific revolution.
By Matthew A. McIntosh
Public Historian
Brewminate
Introduction
On a cold morning in 1806, a thunderous streak of flame tore through the sky above Copenhagen as William Congreve’s newly engineered war rockets rained down upon the city. Civilians fled as iron-cased projectiles arced unpredictably, leaving behind trails of smoke and terror. The scene, both chaotic and awe-inspiring, marked one of the earliest modern attempts to harness controlled propulsion for destructive power. Yet behind the smoke lay the foundation of a revolution in human ingenuity, an era when rockets evolved from the tools of spectacle and war into instruments of rescue, science, and imagination.
The nineteenth century was a transitional period in the history of rocketry, situated between the inherited pyrotechnic traditions of Asia and the scientific innovations that would culminate in the twentieth-century space age. It was an age of experimentation, when inventors tested the boundaries of chemistry, physics, and practicality in pursuit of propulsion. From Congreve’s battlefield innovations to William Hale’s stabilizing breakthroughs, Henry Trengrouse’s humanitarian adaptations, and William Leitch’s visionary speculation about spaceflight, the century’s rocket pioneers reflected the diverse purposes and ambitions of their age.1
Each of these figures approached rocketry from a different vantage point. Congreve transformed ancient ideas of gunpowder propulsion into a weapon system adopted by major European powers.2 Hale replaced Congreve’s cumbersome guiding stick with the principle of spin stabilization, creating the first truly aerodynamic rocket.3 Trengrouse, working along England’s southwestern coast, reimagined rockets not as instruments of destruction but as devices for saving shipwrecked sailors.4 Leitch, writing in Scotland in the 1860s, extended these mechanical principles into the realm of theory, proposing that rockets might one day propel human beings beyond the atmosphere.5
What follows explores how nineteenth-century rocket experiments embodied the intersection of war, industry, humanitarianism, and science. It situates the work of these inventors within a rapidly industrializing world, one in which new materials, mathematical understanding, and imperial ambition converged to redefine the possibilities of propulsion. Far from being a mere prelude to twentieth-century rocketry, the nineteenth century represents a critical moment of transition: a period when the rocket, once a symbol of spectacle and fear, began its long ascent toward modernity and the stars.
Congreve’s War Rockets and Early Nineteenth-Century Developments
The modern history of rocketry in the West began with Sir William Congreve (1772–1828), a British artillery officer who transformed inherited ideas from India’s Mysorean rockets into a standardized weapon system for European warfare. His experiments at the Woolwich Arsenal from 1804 onward produced a family of iron-cased, stick-guided projectiles that ranged in size from small signal rockets to heavy bombardment types exceeding thirty pounds in weight.6 Inspired by the iron rockets used against British forces by Tipu Sultan in the late eighteenth century, Congreve sought to adapt their power to the logistics and discipline of an industrial military system. His earliest tests, conducted on the grounds of the Royal Laboratory, demonstrated that rockets could be launched in volleys and sustained over long distances without the need for artillery pieces, an advantage that appealed to the British War Office.7
Congreve’s rockets made their combat debut in 1806, when the Royal Navy used them against Boulogne, and gained notoriety during the bombardment of Copenhagen the following year. The “rockets’ red glare” immortalized in The Star-Spangled Banner referred to Congreve’s weapons used during the attack on Fort McHenry in 1814.8 Despite their psychological impact, these rockets were notoriously inaccurate, owing to the instability of their long guiding sticks and the uneven burning of their gunpowder propellant. Congreve attempted to correct these defects through a series of refinements (adjusting exhaust apertures, experimenting with different stick lengths, and developing launch frames) but the essential limitation of his design remained.9
Nevertheless, Congreve’s work marked the first concerted effort to industrialize rocket production. He established formal manufacturing procedures, calibrating each rocket’s casing and fuse for consistency, and created a classification system that allowed for logistical coordination in the field.10 His publications, particularly A Concise Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System (1807), reflected a rare attempt to codify rocketry as both a science and an art. His influence extended beyond Britain: France, Prussia, and Russia all conducted experiments with Congreve-type rockets in the ensuing decades. By the 1820s, Britain had established dedicated “rocket troops,” whose training manuals mirrored artillery doctrine, confirming that rockets had secured a place, if briefly, in modern warfare.11
Yet the limitations of Congreve’s design became increasingly apparent as artillery technology advanced. Rifled cannon, improved metallurgy, and the development of explosive shells offered greater accuracy and destructive capability. The Congreve rocket, while revolutionary in its time, was soon relegated to a transitional role, a bridge between the fireworks of the eighteenth century and the aerodynamic innovations that would follow. Its true legacy lay not in its battlefield effectiveness but in its demonstration that propulsion could be engineered, standardized, and scaled, a conceptual leap that would inform every rocket experiment to come.
William Hale and the Evolution of Rocket Stabilization and Control
By the 1840s, the limitations of Congreve’s stick-stabilized rockets had become insurmountable for practical warfare. The problem of accuracy, an issue of both physics and design, demanded a new approach. William Hale (1797–1870), an English engineer, provided that breakthrough. Hale’s innovation eliminated the cumbersome guide stick altogether by introducing a system of spin stabilization, achieved through three small angled exhaust nozzles near the base of the rocket. As the propellant burned, gases vented through these nozzles, imparting rotation to the rocket’s body and thereby stabilizing its flight.12 This principle, though simple in concept, represented a radical shift in the understanding of propulsion dynamics. For the first time, a rocket could stabilize itself aerodynamically rather than mechanically, allowing for more compact design, improved range, and greater accuracy.
Hale patented his “stickless rocket” in 1844, publishing detailed specifications the following year. His invention gained attention not only in Britain but also abroad, where militaries sought to improve upon Congreve’s cumbersome weapons. The United States was among the first to adopt Hale rockets, using them during the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. They were later deployed during the Crimean War, where both British and French forces tested their reliability under combat conditions.13 Although still far from precise by modern standards, Hale’s rockets offered demonstrably greater consistency in trajectory than their predecessors, and their compactness made them easier to transport and deploy from field carriages or shipborne launchers.14
Hale’s designs also reflected the growing industrial sophistication of mid-nineteenth-century Britain. Whereas Congreve’s rockets had been laboriously assembled by hand, Hale’s were produced with machine tooling that ensured consistent nozzle alignment and casing thickness. This industrial precision was crucial for achieving the rotational balance on which his system depended. The shift from artisanal to mechanized production paralleled broader changes in Victorian engineering, linking rocketry to the same manufacturing revolutions that transformed locomotives, ships, and artillery.15 The Ministry of Ordnance recognized Hale’s contribution by sponsoring additional tests at Woolwich Arsenal, confirming the design’s advantages but also its limitations, chiefly its cost and continued susceptibility to wind interference.
Despite these constraints, Hale’s rockets exerted a profound influence on the theory of propulsion. His emphasis on internal gas dynamics anticipated later developments in liquid-fuel and spin-stabilized projectiles. Though the scientific vocabulary of aerodynamics was not yet formalized, Hale intuitively understood that the key to stable flight lay in rotational equilibrium rather than external guidance. In this sense, his invention marked a conceptual evolution as significant as any technical improvement. By uniting precision engineering with a theoretical grasp of motion, Hale bridged the divide between empirical experimentation and modern aerospace physics.16
Yet like Congreve, Hale struggled against the realities of military conservatism. Artillery officers, skeptical of rockets’ erratic performance, continued to favor cannon despite their greater weight and complexity. By the 1860s, rifled guns had rendered most military rockets obsolete, relegating Hale’s designs to training exercises and colonial campaigns. Nevertheless, his ideas endured through translation and adaptation: nineteenth-century experimenters in Germany, France, and the United States studied his principles, while early twentieth-century rocketeers, among them Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard, would unknowingly revisit the same concepts of spin stabilization. Hale’s achievement, though largely forgotten by his contemporaries, stands as one of the century’s most important intellectual milestones in propulsion theory.
Henry Trengrouse and Rocket Use in Line-Throwing and Rescue Applications
While Congreve and Hale directed their innovations toward the battlefield, Henry Trengrouse (1772–1854) pursued an entirely different goal: saving lives at sea. A cabinetmaker and inventor from Helston in Cornwall, Trengrouse witnessed firsthand the devastation of maritime disasters along the English coast. The wreck of the transport ship HMS Anson in December 1807, in which more than a hundred sailors drowned within sight of shore, spurred him to design a system capable of bridging the fatal gap between stranded vessels and rescuers on land.17 His “rocket apparatus,” patented in 1819, fired a lightweight line from shore to ship, allowing sailors to haul heavier cables and, eventually, rescue chairs for evacuation. In contrast to the destructive purpose of Congreve’s designs, Trengrouse’s rocket weaponized gunpowder for mercy rather than war.
The apparatus consisted of a conical rocket attached to a thin cord wound around a wooden reel. When launched from a tripod or hand frame, the rocket could deliver its line with precision even in gale conditions. Trengrouse demonstrated his invention before the Admiralty in 1818 and later in front of King George III, but despite official interest, widespread adoption proved elusive.18 Bureaucratic inertia and the cost of manufacture hampered early distribution, and it was not until the 1830s that similar devices were adopted by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the Board of Trade. Nevertheless, Trengrouse’s design represented a pioneering adaptation of rocket technology to civilian and humanitarian purposes, influencing subsequent life-saving systems across Europe and the United States.
His work also illustrated the versatility of nineteenth-century rocketry. The line-throwing rocket applied the same principles of propulsion, stabilization, and scaling as Congreve’s and Hale’s designs but in a context that demanded reliability and accuracy over range. The portability of Trengrouse’s device made it a practical tool for coastguards and lifeboat crews, while its mechanical simplicity ensured ease of use in emergencies. Later inventors, including John Dennett in Britain and Joseph Francis in America, refined the concept, producing breech-loading launchers and metal-cased rockets, yet the fundamental idea remained Trengrouse’s.19 His invention thus represents one of the first successful civilian applications of modern rocketry, demonstrating that the same science which could destroy fleets could also save them.
Trengrouse’s advocacy for his device reflected the moral dimensions of nineteenth-century engineering. In lectures and pamphlets, he argued that “no art is more noble than that which preserves human life,” a sentiment that echoed the Victorian ideal of technology as moral progress.20 The transition of rocketry from military to humanitarian use mirrored broader social currents in Britain, where industrial innovation increasingly intersected with philanthropy, public safety, and reform. Trengrouse’s device symbolized this synthesis, transforming explosive chemistry into an instrument of compassion.
By mid-century, rescue rockets were standard equipment along the British coastline and aboard lifeboats. Their success inspired international adoption: by the 1850s, variants were in service in France, the Netherlands, and the United States. Though largely forgotten today, Trengrouse’s line-throwing rocket stands as a milestone in the democratization of rocket technology, a reminder that innovation often transcends its martial origins. In an age when invention was too often synonymous with destruction, his work affirmed that the power of propulsion could just as readily bridge the distance between peril and salvation.
William Leitch and Speculative / Space-Oriented Thinking in the Mid-19th Century
In the later decades of the nineteenth century, as the industrial revolution accelerated and scientific knowledge expanded, a few thinkers began to look beyond the atmosphere itself. Among the earliest was the Scottish clergyman and scholar William Leitch (1814–1864), whose 1861 essay A Journey Through Space offered one of the first serious discussions of rockets as potential vehicles for space travel.21 Leitch, educated in mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow, combined scientific literacy with theological imagination. His essay, published in Good Words, a widely read Scottish periodical, described how rockets, by expelling exhaust in the opposite direction, could accelerate even in the vacuum of space. Though the term “Newton’s third law” does not appear in his text, Leitch’s reasoning precisely reflected it. More than half a century before Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard, he recognized that the rocket’s reaction principle made it the only conceivable engine capable of interplanetary flight.22
Leitch’s perspective was distinct from the speculative fiction of his contemporaries, such as Jules Verne, in that it rested upon sound physical principles rather than fantasy. His argument drew upon Newtonian mechanics, which he interpreted through a moral and theological lens: if the universe operated under rational physical laws, then humanity’s exploration of those laws was not hubris but reverence. The rocket thus became a symbol of both intellectual and spiritual ascent. He wrote of propulsion as a divine harmony of force and design, suggesting that technology could serve as an instrument of cosmic understanding.23 This blend of scientific rigor and moral philosophy was characteristic of Victorian intellectual culture, which often fused natural theology with empirical inquiry.
The influence of Leitch’s essay was muted during his lifetime. His ideas circulated primarily among British readers of religious and scientific journals rather than within formal engineering circles, and his premature death in 1864 curtailed further development. Yet his vision endured quietly in print, resurfacing in later British discussions of rocketry and astronomy at the turn of the century. When historians of astronautics rediscovered A Journey Through Space in the mid-twentieth century, they recognized Leitch as the first writer to articulate a scientifically valid explanation of rocket propulsion in space, predating both Tsiolkovsky’s Study of Outer Space by Reaction Devices (1967) and Goddard’s A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes (1919).24
Leitch’s work thus occupies a liminal space between theology, science, and the imagination of flight. His reasoning bridged the practical rocketry of Congreve, Hale, and Trengrouse with the cosmic aspirations of modern astronautics. Where they had applied gunpowder to earthly struggles (military, maritime, and mechanical) Leitch extended its implications to infinity. His recognition that propulsion could transcend gravity marked not just an intellectual milestone but a cultural one, situating the rocket within the Victorian search for unity between matter and spirit. In the vast history of rocketry, Leitch’s modest essay stands as one of its most profound moments: a vision of the heavens conceived not through conquest, but through curiosity.
Themes, Context, and Broader Implications
Taken together, the work of Congreve, Hale, Trengrouse, and Leitch reveals that nineteenth-century rocketry was not a linear progression toward modern spaceflight but a multifaceted experiment in propulsion, purpose, and philosophy. Each inventor embodied a distinct trajectory of innovation: Congreve turned pyrotechnics into an organized military technology; Hale transformed mechanical stability into aerodynamic control; Trengrouse redirected explosive power toward humanitarian ends; and Leitch elevated rocket theory from practical mechanics to cosmic speculation. Their collective efforts formed a bridge between the early gunpowder rockets of Asia and the scientifically grounded rocketry of the twentieth century.25 In their diversity, they demonstrated that the rocket’s evolution was never confined to a single discipline, it belonged equally to warfare, engineering, moral imagination, and natural philosophy.
One of the most striking themes uniting these figures is the interplay between military necessity and technological innovation. Congreve’s experiments arose directly from imperial warfare, while Hale’s refinements reflected both industrial precision and strategic demand. The British state’s sponsorship of their research underscored how the nineteenth century fused national security with mechanical ingenuity. Yet this militarization of invention also produced moral ambivalence: the same technologies that destroyed fortresses could, as Trengrouse proved, rescue sailors from destruction. The dual-use nature of rockets, both lethal and life-saving, prefigured the ethical dilemmas of later scientific progress, where every new discovery carried the potential for both harm and hope.26
Industrialization itself shaped the direction of nineteenth-century rocketry. The shift from artisanal craftsmanship to mechanized production allowed for standardization, quality control, and scalability, all of which were essential to Hale’s success. Woolwich Arsenal and other government facilities functioned as proto-industrial laboratories, merging experimental science with factory discipline. This blending of science and manufacture became a defining feature of Victorian engineering culture. The rocket, once a curiosity of alchemists and showmen, had entered the machine age. In this sense, nineteenth-century rocketry reflected not only a technological revolution but a transformation in how knowledge was produced, tested, and disseminated.27
The era also witnessed the gradual intellectual expansion of propulsion theory. As inventors and thinkers grappled with the principles of reaction and motion, they began to perceive rockets not merely as tools of warfare or rescue but as expressions of universal physical laws. Leitch’s application of Newtonian mechanics to the vacuum of space exemplified this shift. His essay transformed the rocket from a national instrument of empire into a symbol of scientific humanity, a vessel through which the laws of nature might be explored rather than exploited. This movement from empirical tinkering to theoretical understanding mirrored the broader nineteenth-century transition from craftsmanship to science, a shift that would ultimately enable the systematic study of propulsion in the twentieth century.28
Finally, these developments must be viewed within the cultural and philosophical landscape of the age. The nineteenth century was defined by contradictions: industrial progress coexisted with colonial violence, faith in science with fear of its consequences. The rocket epitomized those tensions. It was a weapon of empire, a tool of salvation, and, in Leitch’s vision, a means of transcendence. Through it, the century’s ambitions (military, moral, and metaphysical) converged into a single technological symbol. The legacy of Congreve, Hale, Trengrouse, and Leitch thus extends beyond their individual inventions. Collectively, they represent a century’s worth of experimentation that transformed fire into flight and laid the intellectual groundwork for the space age to come.29
Conclusion
The nineteenth century was an age of paradox for the history of rocketry, a century that stood midway between pyrotechnic spectacle and scientific revolution. In its workshops, arsenals, and lecture halls, the rocket was reimagined in forms that ranged from the terrifying to the visionary. Congreve’s war rockets introduced a new vocabulary of propulsion, transforming chaos into organized firepower, while Hale’s rotary designs refined that energy into controlled flight. Trengrouse redirected the rocket’s force toward compassion, transforming destruction into rescue, and Leitch lifted the technology from earthbound application to cosmic speculation. Together, these inventors defined the full spectrum of human engagement with technology: mastery of matter, pursuit of utility, and the eternal urge to reach beyond limits.30
Their collective story reflects more than technical progress, it embodies the moral and intellectual tensions of the nineteenth century itself. The same industrial systems that forged rockets for empire also produced devices for mercy and dreams for exploration. The boundaries between war, science, and salvation blurred, revealing that invention rarely serves a single purpose. In each case, rocketry reflected the society that created it: imperial ambition in Congreve, mechanical precision in Hale, humanitarian idealism in Trengrouse, and cosmic curiosity in Leitch. These were not merely inventors but representatives of a civilization coming to terms with its own powers, its conscience, and its imagination.31
By the century’s end, rockets had largely faded from military favor, eclipsed by artillery and constrained by chemistry. Yet the intellectual spark they ignited would outlive their obsolescence. When the first space theorists of the twentieth century (Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, Goddard) sought to formalize the science of propulsion, they were unknowingly inheriting a legacy more than a hundred years old. The nineteenth century did not send humanity to the stars, but it provided the first blueprint for how it might be done: through the marriage of experiment and thought, discipline and wonder. The smoke of Congreve’s rockets over Copenhagen, the spin of Hale’s designs, the arc of Trengrouse’s lifelines, and the imagination of Leitch’s essay together form a single trajectory, one that begins in war and ends in the infinite.32
Appendix
Footnotes
- Frank H. Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry: Congreve and Hale Rockets of the Nineteenth Century (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 3–5.
- C. N. Hill, A Vertical Empire: The History of the UK Rocket and Space Programme, 1950–1971 (London: Imperial College Press, 2001), 2.
- New Mexico Museum of Space History, “William Hale,” International Space Hall of Fame, accessed November 2025.
- Henry Trengrouse, An Account of a Life-Saving Apparatus (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1850), 7–9.
- Gavin J. Weightman, The Origins of Flight: From Balloons to Space (London: Yale University Press, 2010), 44–46.
- Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry, 12–14.
- R. E. Scott, “The Military Rockets of Sir William Congreve,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 42, no. 170 (1964): 75–80.
- Hill, A Vertical Empire, 3.
- Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry, 26–29.
- William Congreve, A Concise Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System (London: J. Whiting, 1807), 4–6.
- David R. Jones, The Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars, 1792–1815 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2013), 211–214.
- Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry, 63–65.
- New Mexico Museum of Space History, “William Hale.”
- Charles C. Gillispie, ed., Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 6 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972), 61–62.
- David Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane: Militarism, Modernity and Machines (New York: Penguin, 2013), 22–24.
- Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry, 74–77.
- Trengrouse, An Account of a Life-Saving Apparatus, 5–7.
- R. C. Anderson, Naval Wars in the Levant, 1559–1853 (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool, 1952), 347–348.
- Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry, 89–91.
- Henry Trengrouse, Observations on the Preservation of Life at Sea (London: Longman, 1821), 3.
- William Leitch, “A Journey Through Space,” Good Words 2 (1861): 270–276.
- Frank H. Winter, Prelude to the Space Age: The Rocket Societies, 1924–1940 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983), 6–7.
- Gavin J. Weightman, The Origins of Flight: From Balloons to Space (London: Yale University Press, 2010), 44–46.
- Donald B. Pitt, “William Leitch: The Forgotten Father of Rocket Science,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 33 (1980): 371–374.
- Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry, 5–7.
- Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane, 25–27.
- Hill, A Vertical Empire, 4–6.
- Donald B. Pitt, “William Leitch: The Forgotten Father of Rocket Science,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 33 (1980): 372–374.
- Weightman, The Origins of Flight: From Balloons to Space, 49–52.
- Winter, The First Golden Age of Rocketry, 152–154.
- Weightman, The Origins of Flight: From Balloons to Space, 53–55.
- Pitt, “William Leitch: The Forgotten Father of Rocket Science,” 375.
Bibliography
- Anderson, R. C. Naval Wars in the Levant, 1559–1853. Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool, 1952.
- Congreve, William. A Concise Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System. London: J. Whiting, 1807.
- Edgerton, David. England and the Aeroplane: Militarism, Modernity and Machines. New York: Penguin, 2013.
- Gillispie, Charles C., ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 6. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972.
- Hill, C. N. A Vertical Empire: The History of the UK Rocket and Space Programme, 1950–1971. London: Imperial College Press, 2001.
- Jones, David R. The Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars, 1792–1815. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2013.
- Leitch, William. “A Journey Through Space.” Good Words 2 (1861): 270–276.
- New Mexico Museum of Space History. “William Hale.” International Space Hall of Fame. Accessed November 2025.
- Pitt, Donald B. “William Leitch: The Forgotten Father of Rocket Science.” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 33 (1980): 371–375.
- Scott, R. E. “The Military Rockets of Sir William Congreve.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 42, no. 170 (1964): 75–80.
- Trengrouse, Henry. An Account of a Life-Saving Apparatus. London: Charles Knight & Co., 1850.
- ———. Observations on the Preservation of Life at Sea. London: Longman, 1821.
- Weightman, Gavin J. The Origins of Flight: From Balloons to Space. London: Yale University Press, 2010.
- Winter, Frank H. The First Golden Age of Rocketry: Congreve and Hale Rockets of the Nineteenth Century. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990.
- ———. Prelude to the Space Age: The Rocket Societies, 1924–1940. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983.
Originally published by Brewminate, 11.06.2025, under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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