Fire extinguisher
Date
1830
Object type
Library reference
Tracts XCVIII/7
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 210mm
width (print): 130mm
width (print): 130mm
Content object
Description
Sketch of a man operating a portable fire extinguisher in billowing smoke, with another extinguisher at his feet.
Frontispiece plate from the monograph An essay on the extinction and prevention of destructive fires, with the description of apparatus for rescuing persons from houses enveloped in flames…by George William Manby (William Clowes, London, 1830).
Captain George Manby demonstrated a type of portable fire extinguisher in 1816. The accompanying text states that: ‘My apparatus was as follows: A portable chest, containing four charged cylindrical engines or vessels, and the same number of reservoirs, also filled with a solution of an ingredient calculated to extinguish fire…Finding a chest inconvenient, the above apparatus is now mounted on a cart, so light, that a person can wheel it with rapidity to the required spot. The vessels too, combine the means of projecting the fluid with force at pleasure; are portable, and when slung across the shoulders, may be carried up a ladder.’
Manby’s extinguishers were charged with what he termed ‘Antiphlogistic Fluid’, a mixture of potassium carbonate and compressed air.
George William Manby (1765-1854) British inventor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1831.
Frontispiece plate from the monograph An essay on the extinction and prevention of destructive fires, with the description of apparatus for rescuing persons from houses enveloped in flames…by George William Manby (William Clowes, London, 1830).
Captain George Manby demonstrated a type of portable fire extinguisher in 1816. The accompanying text states that: ‘My apparatus was as follows: A portable chest, containing four charged cylindrical engines or vessels, and the same number of reservoirs, also filled with a solution of an ingredient calculated to extinguish fire…Finding a chest inconvenient, the above apparatus is now mounted on a cart, so light, that a person can wheel it with rapidity to the required spot. The vessels too, combine the means of projecting the fluid with force at pleasure; are portable, and when slung across the shoulders, may be carried up a ladder.’
Manby’s extinguishers were charged with what he termed ‘Antiphlogistic Fluid’, a mixture of potassium carbonate and compressed air.
George William Manby (1765-1854) British inventor was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1831.
Associated place