Booth’s 1901 vacuum cleaner. Too large to get into the house, it extended sucking pipes through the windows.
Hubert Booth, Born 1871
Inventor of the Vacuum cleaner
Hubert Cecil Booth was an English engineer best known for having invented in 1901 the first powered vacuum cleaner. He also designed Ferris wheels, suspension bridges and factories. His Ferris Wheels included the great 200 foot high Vienna Ferris Wheel known as the Wiener Riesenrad, which was constructed in 1897. Later he became Chairman and Managing Director of the British Vacuum Cleaner and Engineering Co. Before Booth’s invention of the vacuum cleaner equivalent machines (such as that patented in 1899 by the American John Thurman) had blown rather than sucked the dust. This was far from satisfactory, as the dust went everywhere. Seeing a demonstration of one of these machines at the Empire Music Hall in London, Booth had the insight that it would be better to suck than blow. His first machine (shown above) was so large that it had to be parked in the street on a horse-drawn wagon. Long suction pipes extended from the machine through the windows of the house into the hands of domestic staff who would manipulate the hoses to provide the desired effect. A glass panel in the side of the machine enabled passers by to observe with astonishment the volume of dust extracted.