The world’s first electric vacuum cleaner was patented by an English engineer on August 30, 1901. We find out why they sued him, why the cleaners climbed the windows, and what the horses were afraid of. And then we’ll go to China and see how the vacuum cleaner makes precious stones.
Who Invented the First Vacuum Cleaner?
Hubert Cecil Booth was an English engineer who designed Ferris wheels, suspension bridges, and even factories. However, he became famous for inventing the first vacuum cleaner that sucked up dust instead of blowing it off surfaces.
Booth was born in Gloucester in 1871. He received his primary education at a Gloucester school and later attended the City and Guilds of London Institute, where he completed a three-year course in civil engineering and mechanical engineering. In 1892, he secured a position as a civil engineer at Maudslay, Sons and Field’s design office in London, where he worked on designing bridges, Ferris wheels for amusement parks, and even engines for Royal Navy battleships.
How a Simple Handkerchief Helped Invent the Vacuum Cleaner
One day, Booth attended a demonstration of a cleaning machine at the Empire Music Hall in London. Observing how the wonder machine blew dust off chairs, he thought: what if the process was reversed? Instead of blowing, what if it sucked in air along with the dust? And if a filter were installed in front of the suction device, the collected dust wouldn’t scatter but would remain inside the vacuum cleaner.
Booth was so taken with this idea that he immediately tested it in a rather primitive way. He placed a handkerchief on a chair, pressed his mouth against it, and tried to inhale as much air as possible. Seeing dust particles on the handkerchief, he realized that the idea might work. Booth received his first patent for the invention on August 30, 1901.
Why Cleaners Climbed Through Windows and Why Horses Were Scared
Booth’s invention bore little resemblance to the vacuum cleaners we are familiar with today. It was a massive machine on a cart, equipped with an internal combustion engine and later, an electric motor. It had no brushes. Cleaning was done by sucking air through long tubes with a piston pump. The design was so bulky that there was no question of bringing it inside a building.
Horses pulled bright red wagons of the British Vacuum Cleaner Company, founded by Booth, through the streets. Liveried operators would pull out a hose and direct it into the appropriate room through a window. Spectators outside were shown the enormous amount of dust collected during cleaning. It was visible in a special glass chamber on the side of the machine.
These visits, it should be noted, were quite expensive and could be compared to the annual salary of a junior maid. Moreover, the infernal machine made a lot of noise and scared the horses on the streets. After a wave of disapproval and lawsuits, Booth managed to convince the public that his invention really worked and was useful.
His device was used in Westminster Abbey to clean carpets. The Royal Navy used it to maintain cleanliness in barracks, and the wonder machine was invited to clean theaters and stores. On one occasion Booth nearly robbed the Royal Mint, and he was even arrested upon leaving. The reason was that his machine had sucked up too much silver dust during cleaning.
Despite the somewhat theatrical nature of the whole operation and the bulkiness of Booth’s first vacuum cleaner, the basic suction principle remains the same to this day. Over time, vacuum cleaners have become smaller, more convenient, and more powerful.
What Modern Vacuum Cleaners Can Do
Did Hubert Booth, when he was sucking dust from a chair through a handkerchief, ever think that 120 years later, vacuum cleaners would no longer resemble giant boxes, and their operation would not resemble the work of a fire brigade climbing through windows with hoses?
Modern vacuum cleaners don’t require theatrical performances during cleaning. And robots don’t even need human involvement. They can:
- Create a virtual map of a room based on sensor and camera readings.
- Update it if new obstacles appear, such as rearranged furniture. So, they can clean the entire apartment independently, without the owner’s guidance.
- Detect edges and corners, ensuring that no dirt is left along baseboards, near furniture, or in hard-to-reach places.
- To start the robot, you don’t need to stay at home and monitor its movement. It will understand the owner perfectly through a smartphone app. And if you’re at home and have a smart speaker, you don’t even need to pick up your smartphone. Just command the speaker to turn on the vacuum cleaner without getting off the couch.
- If the robot runs out of charge during cleaning, it will easily find its way to the charging station. Once recharged, it will resume its work if it was not completed.
From Hubert Booth’s perspective, all of this is far beyond human comprehension. For us, however, it’s not so unusual today.
But a vacuum cleaner that fights smog? That’s something you don’t see in every city. And if this vacuum cleaner also turns smog into precious gems, then you’d want such a miracle in every yard. The Smog Free Project is part of a broader program to clean cities of toxic fog.
This seven-meter aluminum tower is essentially a powerful vacuum cleaner. It suckers in polluted air at the top and releases clean air at the bottom. The device’s capacity is 30,000 cubic meters of air per hour. But the wonders don’t stop there. The tower creates small cubes from collected carbon particles that resemble precious stones, which can be used in fashionable jewelry. Such projects have been launched in South Korea, China, the Netherlands, and Poland.