Augustus Siebe

Siebe was born in Pruisen in 1788. He was an engineer and worked as a artillery officer in the army. After the battle at Waterloo he emigrated to England to settle in London as a precision engineer. He turned out to be at the right place at the right time. The economy was at her top in the middle of the 19th century.

In 1828 Siebe got a patent on a rotating water pump. Sales numbers were formidable and Siebe had his first financial success. He moved to 5 Denmark street in Soho London. The building is still there. Siebe got married, had 9 children and his company went very well.

Around 1830 the Deane brothers consult Augustus Siebe to turn their "smoke helmet" into a real divers helmet. 

George Edwards

In 1837 George Edwards, an engineer at Lowestoft Harbour, suggested safety improvements to the Deane helmet. He suggested to dress the diver in a full dress (instead of the short jacket) and attach the dress to the breastplate by means of 20 bolts. Siebe took over this idea but only used 12 bolts.

Charles Pasley

Was colonel in the British Navy. In 1840 Siebe gear was used by him and his divers in a salvage operation on the Royal George at Spithead in England. The gear was quickly accepted. Till then the divers only had experience with "open helmets" based on the ideas of the Deane brothers. In December 1840 Pasley wrote a letter to the Admiral of the British Navy. He stated that the Siebe apparatus was the best he knew. By this statement of a high placed person Siebe became to be known as THE producer of diving apparatus. Pasley too suggested improvements. He had the idea to split the helmet in two pieces. The lower part (corselet) is attached to the suit and the upper part (bonnet) is attached to the corselet, by means of an interrupted thread facility. Siebe took over this idea as well. 

 

 

The "standard suit" was born and caused a revolution in diving. These days people doubt the efforts that Siebe personally made. The standard suit was at least the fifth version of a divers suit. Many people feel that the real invention came from Charles and John Deane, Edwards and Pasley and that all the honour should go to them.

The combination of all the ideas was a great success:

  • The first open dress was born. Air could circulate free through helmet and dress.
  • The first closed dress was born. Everything was sealed of. There was no risk of filling up with water.

This standard dress was the model for all helmet diving gear as it is still used today. No wonder Siebe got the nickname "Godfather of diving". Visit the Siebe section for further details

Siebe managed his business together with son in law, Gorman. For that reason later nametags carry the name Siebe, Gorman and Company. 

With the use of Siebe apparatus the diving industry started "coming up" in the whole world. On April 15 1872,  Augustus Siebe died in the age of 84 in his house in Soho, London. The company: Siebe, Gorman & company eventually went out of business in 1999. 
John Bethel John Fraser William Bush

British patent for closed dress diving apparatus in 1835.
Bethel was a competitor of the Deane brothers.

British patent for closed dress diving apparatus in 1835

British patent for closed dress diving apparatus in 1836

Joseph Cabirol

At the "Exposition Universelle" in 1855 he showed gear that looked a lot like Siebe's. The helmet was attached to the suit by 4 bolts. The suit had a double security system: air came in via a hose that was close to the right ear. It featured a manually adjustable valve. A second hose went straight to the mouth, for safety. This hose was called "the whistle". Because of Cabirols' public experiments this gear was very popular. He ones sent a convict down to 40 meters.

Rouquayrol en Denayrouze

 

 

For years it was presumed that Siebe's standard suit represented the ultimate in diving gear possibilities. However, in 1865, two French guys, Benoit Rouquayrol, a mine engineer and Auguste Denayrouze, lieutenant in the French navy developed the Aerophore. The diver carried a canister with compressed air on the back. A  demand regulator working with a membrane was attached to it. The design featured some things developed by Siebe. With a compressor air was brought to the container (and not to the helmet). The air them went thru a hose to the helmet. The regulator was capable of leveling the air pressure in the lungs to the pressure of the surrounding water.

The diver could disconnect the air hose and walk around for some minutes. The system was never popular. Maybe because of the large foot weights that had to be carried.
 

Neufeldt-Kuhnke

 

Had to show you this one. This suit, known as the Neufeldt-Kuhnke suit was build in 1923 and used in the beginning of the 20th century to work in deep waters. Inside the suit was the normal surface pressure. It could resist water pressure up to a depth of 160 meters. Air was supplied thru a closed system and a telephone connection with the surface was available. buoyancy was obtained by admitting water to a ballast tank surrounding the body. The diver could press in in air for positive buoyancy.  The suit never got very popular. The water pressure had an enormous impact on the coupling joints, making any movement impossible. Other pioneers in this area were Peress and Galeazzi.

Since that time hundreds of companies produced (and still produce) hundreds of types of helmets. These have one thing in common: the efforts of the people mentioned in this section. 

 

So far a breathtaking piece of history!!!
  • Last edited December 24th 2003