Robert Davis (inventor)

Sir Robert Henry Davis (1870 – 1965) was an English inventor and director of the Siebe Gorman company.^[1] His main invention was the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, an oxygen rebreather that Davis patented for the first time in 1910,^[2] 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.

A Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus.

While still directing Siebe Gorman Davis was the first British to buy a licence from the Cousteau-Gagnan Aqua-Lung^[3] (from the French company La Spirotechnique), starting commercialization of scuba sets in Britain as of 1948. Siebe Gorman aqualungs ended being known under the name of tadpole sets.^[4]

Davis Road in Chessington (where Siebe Gorman's factory was for a while) was named after him.

Publications

He wrote the books:

• Diving Scientifically and Practically Considered. Being a Diving Manual and Handbook of Submarine Appliances, first edition 1909, published by Siebe, Gorman & Co., Ltd. in London.
• A Diving Manual and Handbook of Submarine Appliances, second edition 1919, published by Siebe, Gorman & Co., Ltd. in London.
• Breathing in Irrespirable Atmospheres, and in some cases, also underwater, first published 1948 by St. Catherine Press, Ltd in London. It has 376 pages, c.250 photographs, and diagrams.
• Davis, RH (1955). Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, a Manual for Deep Sea Divers and Compressed Air Workers (6th ed.). Tolworth, Surbiton, Surrey: Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd. p. 693. 4th edition, published 1935.