Author: Chris Aspin
Publisher: Helmshore Local History Society, 2009
Price: £4.95 (paperback)
Isbn: 9780906881200

Despite Steeple Jack’s nickname entering the language, James Duncan Wright is forgotten. This slim volume attempts to rescue him from obscurity. The story of his feats repairing factory chimneys takes in Dickens and Darwin, Napoleon and the King of the Belg­ians, who remarked that he “was only a man like [Steeple Jack] but perhaps not such an elevated one.”

He used a stout calico kite (featuring masonic symbols) rather than the conventional wooden scaffolding to affix ropes and chains to buildings that were sometimes over 200ft high. With his system of weights and pulleys, ‘The Fastest Man’ raced along his ropes at 100mph not long after doctors thought trains reaching 30mph could prove fatal. It would be over 50 years before they matched his top speed.

The book is light on personal detail; his professional exploits take precedence. It features photos, illustrations and contemporary news clippings. Perhaps it should carry a caution: May prove traumatic for health and safety fanatics or sufferers of vertigo.