Original vacuum cleaner, from to Royal Naval College
- Made:
- 1905
This image is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence
This image is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence
Booth's original Red Trolley British Vacuum Cleaner, 1905. The invention of the vacuum cleaner is generally credited to
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Booth's original Red Trolley British Vacuum Cleaner, 1905. The invention of the vacuum cleaner is generally credited
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Original vacuum cleaner, supplied to Royal Naval College, Osborne, c.1905
The British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth came up with the idea for the vacuum cleaner in 1901, after watching railway carriages being cleaned using compressed air to blow away dust and debris.
Booth's brainwave was to create a machine that sucked up dirt rather than blowing it away. His early machines were large and expensive, so at first he offered vacuum cleaning as a mobile service. Typically horse-drawn, the machines were parked outside houses and long hoses were fed through windows.
This one was made for the naval academy at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
Details
- Category:
- Domestic Appliances
- Object Number:
- 1958-199
- type:
- vacuum cleaner
- credit:
- British Vacuum Cleaner and Engineering Company
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