Charles Person


Charles Person was born on the 8th of August in 1873 in Paris, France.
In 1896 he emigrated to Brazil and soon afterwards he founded the Company Officina Machanica Charles Person.
The Company was located in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He died on 22nd July 1964.

Charles Person set up his manufacturing business for boat propellers in Sao Paulo in Brazil in the earlier part of the 20th Century. Brazil, a vast country in South America has thousands of miles of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. It is perhaps therefore not surprising that Charles Person turned his expertise in metal craft to building diving helmets. His factory built both shallow water helmets, used extensively throughout South America in the Diamond and precious stone extraction business and Standard 12 bolt helmets used for traditional deep water diving.

Both the Shallow water helmets and the 12 bolt helmets were made with great skill and the 12 bolt helmets were as
well made as any manufacturer in any part of the World. They were 4 light with a traditional style screw in front window.
 
The spitcock is of the teardrop design similar to
those found on the Mark V helmets from the US and
the earlier Siebe Gorman helmets from England.
A rear view of the helmet shows the skilful soldering around
the exhaust valve and the fine quality of the metal casting.
 
An interior view shows the air train and the chin air release button and the interrupted thread.
A plan view shows the brail arrangement and the position on the crown of the bonnet of the lashing eyes.
 
Rear view reveals the locking catch for the bonnet and the weight lugs. The name of the maker is stamped into the rear brail
on both sides of the centre nut followed by a 'fouled anchor' possibly designating this helmet belonged to the Brazilian Navy.

Click Charles Person to view the shallow water helmet by the same manufacturer.

Photos courtesy of The Clint Green collection


12 bolt Deep Water helmet with applied makers name plate.

With thanks to Guillermo Taboada for contributing text and photos for this article.