Feuerheerd, Ernest Matthias Adalbert 1876 - 1948

Nationality:
British

Ernest Feuerheed was born on 20 May 1876 in Essex. His family were of German origin, though his father Hermann moved to England in 1860. Ernest was however sent to Germany for his schooling, where he attended the Oberrealschule at Oldenburg from 1886-1892, before transferring to King’s College School, London, in 1892. In 1893 Ernest moved to Paris, where, an enthusiastic musician, he studied the violin for some time. Unfortunately however Ernest broke his little finger in an accident on holiday which ended any potential career he may have had as a violinist.

During the First World War Ernest fought for the British Army and fought at Salonika, where his mobility was permanently affected after an incident in which his boots were burned off his feet and his driver burned to death in front of him. He relinquished his military commission due to ill healthy on 1 January 1919, and turned his efforts in a new direction as an inventor. His patent application for his Rotary Lobe Pump was granted on 14 August 1919, though it is believed he had started working on the pump as early as 1900. Feuerheed Rotors Ltd. was registered as a company in Liverpool on 2 June 1919 to make and market the pumps and the pump was first demonstrated publicly in June 1919 at the Royal Agricultural Society’s Show in Cardiff, where it was received enthusiastically. The Feuerheed Rotary Pump was produced by Stohert and Pitt, a major Bath engineering firm, and appears to have had some success until 1921, from which point little information can be found about it. It is suspected that Feuerheed’s Germanic name may have had something to do with the pump’s decline in popularity.

From 1927 Stohert and Pitt took over the pump’s manufacture under their own name and the pump enjoyed renewed success. Whilst Feuerheed continued working on amendments to the pump and other inventions, with the approach of the Second World War, his efforts instead turned to using his linguistic skills as a Telegraph Censor. During the war he also took out three final patents, two for mechanical hammers and a third for a needle-threading device for sewing machines.

Feuerheed died in London on 18 March 1948.