 |
| Industry | Diving equipment |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1844 |
| Founder | Charles Edwin Heinke |
| Defunct | 1961 |
| Fate | Incorporated into Siebe Gorman |
| Headquarters | , United Kingdom |
| Products | Aqualungs, diving helmets, dry suits, wetsuits diving masks, swimming fins, snorkel tubes |
Heinke was a series of companies that made diving equipment in London, run by members of a Heinke family.
Gotthilf Frederick Heinke was born in Messeritz, Prussia in 1786. [1] He arrived in London in 1809 and worked initially as a victualler to build up capital. [2] He married Sarah Smith, [3] who bore him three sons and two daughters. The sons were John William Heinke (born 1816), Charles Edwin Heinke (born 1818), and Gotthilf Henry Heinke (born 1820). John married Louisa Margaret Leathart in 1840
In 1818, Gotthilf Frederick Heinke opened an ironmongery shop business in London and, in 1819, he got a workshop at 103 Great Portland Street in London. [lower-alpha 1] Gotthilf Frederick opened a second premises at 3 Old Jewry, London in 1839.
Around 1844, Charles Edwin Heinke made his first diving helmet. Inspired by William F. Saddler, Heinke started using solid brass for diving helmets' breastplates, instead of copper sheet. Heinke's diving helmets had three similarly shaped circular windows. They did not have the outer protective grills as in other helmets; thus they had better visibility for divers, and it was easier to keep the windows clean. Heinke's main competitor was Siebe Gorman who also made diving helmets, and Heinke constantly tried to improve on designs. He introduced an additional exhaust valve on the front side of the breastplate, which is now called the "peppermill" because of the holes in its cover. This exhaust made it possible for the diver to ascend and descend much faster.[ citation needed ][ dubious ]
In 1845, Charles brought in the "Pearler" helmet, with a square-pattern mould-cast (instead of oval and beaten) copper helmet. He became famous with this style. Their square breastplate made it easier for the diver to bend forwards to look for pearl oysters on the seabed. The idea was later copied by companies such as Siebe after Siebe took over Heinke, and even by Morse Diving in the USA.
Unlike Siebe Gorman, who had only one series of serial numbers for their diving helmets, except for the last productions (which were meant most probably for the Russian Navy), Heinke used many series of serial numbers for them.
The timeline of underwater diving technology is a chronological list of notable events in the history of the development of underwater diving equipment. With the partial exception of breath-hold diving, the development of underwater diving capacity, scope, and popularity, has been closely linked to available technology, and the physiological constraints of the underwater environment.
Aqua-Lung was the first open-circuit, self-contained underwater breathing apparatus to achieve worldwide popularity and commercial success. This class of equipment is now commonly referred to as a twin-hose diving regulator, or demand valve. The Aqua-Lung was invented in France during the winter of 1942–1943 by two Frenchmen: engineer Émile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau, who was a Naval Lieutenant. It allowed Cousteau and Gagnan to film and explore underwater more easily.
A dry suit or drysuit provides the wearer with environmental protection by way of thermal insulation and exclusion of water, and is worn by divers, boaters, water sports enthusiasts, and others who work or play in or near cold or contaminated water. A dry suit normally protects the whole body except the head, hands, and possibly the feet. In hazmat configurations, however, all of these are covered as well.
A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit may also incorporate a breathing gas supply, but in most cases the term applies only to the environmental protective covering worn by the diver. The breathing gas supply is usually referred to separately. There is no generic term for the combination of suit and breathing apparatus alone. It is generally referred to as diving equipment or dive gear along with any other equipment necessary for the dive.
Standard diving dress, also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, deep sea diving suit or heavy gear, is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all relatively deep underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, which included marine salvage, civil engineering, pearl shell diving and other commercial diving work, and similar naval diving applications. Standard diving dress has largely been superseded by lighter and more comfortable equipment.
A diving helmet is a rigid head enclosure with a breathing gas supply used in underwater diving. They are worn mainly by professional divers engaged in surface-supplied diving, though some models can be used with scuba equipment. The upper part of the helmet, known colloquially as the hat or bonnet, may be sealed directly to the diver using a neck dam, connected to a diving suit by a lower part, known as a breastplate, or corselet, depending on regional language preferences. or simply rest on the diver's shoulders, with an open bottom, for shallow water use.
A full-face diving mask is a type of diving mask that seals the whole of the diver's face from the water and contains a mouthpiece, demand valve or constant flow gas supply that provides the diver with breathing gas. The full face mask has several functions: it lets the diver see clearly underwater, it provides the diver's face with some protection from cold and polluted water and from stings, such as from jellyfish or coral. It increases breathing security and provides a space for equipment that lets the diver communicate with the surface support team.
The Siebe Gorman Salvus is a light oxygen rebreather for industrial use or in shallow diving. Its duration on a filling is 30 to 40 minutes. It was very common in Britain during World War II and for a long time afterwards. Underwater the Salvus is very compact and can be used where a diver with a bigger breathing set cannot get in, such as inside cockpits of ditched aircraft. It was made by Siebe Gorman & Company, LTD in London, England. It was designed in the early 1900s.
Christian Augustus Siebe was a German-born British engineer chiefly known for his contributions to diving equipment.
Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company that developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects. The company advertised itself as 'Submarine Engineers'. It was founded by Augustus Siebe, a German-born British engineer chiefly known for his contributions to diving equipment.
(Captain) Trevor Hampton AFC was one of the United Kingdom's first scuba divers and helped to develop sport diving in the UK.
Submarine Products Ltd (1959−1990) was a diving gear manufacturer, with a factory in Hexham in Northumberland, England. It was founded in 1959 by Lieutenant-Commander Hugh Oswell.
Sir Robert Henry Davis was an English inventor and director of the Siebe Gorman company. His main invention was the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, an oxygen rebreather that Davis patented for the first time in 1910, inspired by the rebreathers that Henry Fleuss patented as of 1876. Davis breathing set was destined to allow British submarine crews to escape when their ship started to sink.
Henry Albert Fleuss was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver for Siebe, Gorman & Co. of London.
Norbert Oscar Gugen co-founded the British Sub-Aqua Club, "the largest and most successful diving club in the world", and the partnership E. T. Skinner & Co. Ltd., which became Typhoon International, "the world’s largest manufacturer of drysuits". Born Norbert Oscar Gugenbichler in Paris with dual Austrian and French nationality, he was naturalised British as "Manager and Secretary " on 29 August 1951.
Charles Anthony Deane (1796–1848) was a pioneering diving engineer, inventor of the diving helmet.
The BSAC London Branch is the original branch No.1 of the British Sub-Aqua Club. The branch continues as an active, member-driven club to train and undertake scuba diving within the UK and around the world. The branch is currently located in the basement of the Seymour Leisure Centre in Marylebone, central London. The branch meets weekly at 7pm on Tuesdays and retires to the Thornbury Castle nearby after training or playing Octopush in the swimming pool.
The history of underwater diving starts with freediving as a widespread means of hunting and gathering, both for food and other valuable resources such as pearls and coral. By classical Greek and Roman times commercial applications such as sponge diving and marine salvage were established. Military diving also has a long history, going back at least as far as the Peloponnesian War, with recreational and sporting applications being a recent development. Technological development in ambient pressure diving started with stone weights (skandalopetra) for fast descent. In the 16th and 17th centuries diving bells became functionally useful when a renewable supply of air could be provided to the diver at depth, and progressed to surface-supplied diving helmets—in effect miniature diving bells covering the diver's head and supplied with compressed air by manually operated pumps—which were improved by attaching a waterproof suit to the helmet and in the early 19th century became the standard diving dress.
The history of scuba diving is closely linked with the history of the equipment. By the turn of the twentieth century, two basic architectures for underwater breathing apparatus had been pioneered; open-circuit surface supplied equipment where the diver's exhaled gas is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit breathing apparatus where the diver's carbon dioxide is filtered from the exhaled breathing gas, which is then recirculated, and more gas added to replenish the oxygen content. Closed circuit equipment was more easily adapted to scuba in the absence of reliable, portable, and economical high pressure gas storage vessels. By the mid-twentieth century, high pressure cylinders were available and two systems for scuba had emerged: open-circuit scuba where the diver's exhaled breath is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit scuba where the carbon dioxide is removed from the diver's exhaled breath which has oxygen added and is recirculated. Oxygen rebreathers are severely depth limited due to oxygen toxicity risk, which increases with depth, and the available systems for mixed gas rebreathers were fairly bulky and designed for use with diving helmets. The first commercially practical scuba rebreather was designed and built by the diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. His self contained breathing apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with an estimated 50–60% oxygen supplied from a copper tank and carbon dioxide scrubbed by passing it through a bundle of rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash. During the 1930s and all through World War II, the British, Italians and Germans developed and extensively used oxygen rebreathers to equip the first frogmen. In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented a free-swimming oxygen rebreather. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA, an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus," which became the generic English word for autonomous breathing equipment for diving, and later for the activity using the equipment. After World War II, military frogmen continued to use rebreathers since they do not make bubbles which would give away the presence of the divers. The high percentage of oxygen used by these early rebreather systems limited the depth at which they could be used due to the risk of convulsions caused by acute oxygen toxicity.
Gibraltar Harbour's air lock diving-bell plant, or caisson diving bell barge, was a purpose-built barge for the laying, examination and repair of moorings for battleships. It was designed by Siebe Gorman & Company of Lambeth and Forrestt & Co. Ltd of Wivenhoe in Essex, who built and supplied it in 1902 for the British Admiralty.
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