William Samuel Henson patented the Aerial Steam Carriage in 1843, proposing a large fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft powered by steam. The machine never flew as imagined, but its plans were widely publicised. It gave Victorian society a striking visual image of passenger air travel before aviation was practical.

Henson's machine entered the illustrated press and helped seed the aerial future in popular imagination. Victorian poets and novelists lived in a world where technological prophecy, travel, empire, and anxiety increasingly mingled in print.