Sir Robert Henry Davis was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 inventor and director of the Siebe Gorman

Siebe Gorman

Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

 company. His main invention was the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus

Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus

The Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus , was an early type of oxygen rebreather invented in 1910 by Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman and Co. Ltd., inspired by the earlier Fleuss system...

, an oxygen rebreather that Davis patented for the first time in 1910, inspired by the rebreathers that Henry Fleuss

Henry Fleuss

Henry Albert Fleuss was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver for Siebe, Gorman & Co. of London.Fleuss was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire in 1851....

 patented as of 1876. Davis breathing set was destined to allow British submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 crews to escape when their ship started to sink.

While still directing Siebe Gorman

Siebe Gorman

Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

 Davis was the first British to buy a licence from the Cousteau-Gagnan

Emile Gagnan

Émile Gagnan was a French engineer and co-inventor of the diving regulator used for the first Scuba equipment in 1943...

 Aqua-Lung

Aqua-lung

Aqua-Lung was the original name of the first open-circuit free-swimming underwater breathing set in reaching worldwide popularity and commercial success...

 (from the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 company La Spirotechnique), starting commercialization of scuba set

Scuba set

A scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving. It is much used for sport diving and some sorts of work diving....

s in Britain as of 1948. Siebe Gorman aqualungs ended being known under the name of tadpole sets.

Davis Road in Chessington

Chessington

Chessington is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London, England. The Hogsmill river runs through it. Neighbouring settlements include: Tolworth, Ewell, Surbiton, Claygate, Epsom, Oxshott, Leatherhead, Esher, Kingston upon Thames and Worcester Park.-History:Its name...

 (where Siebe Gorman

Siebe Gorman

Siebe Gorman & Company Ltd was a British company which developed diving equipment and breathing equipment and worked on commercial diving and marine salvage projects...

's factory was for a while) was named after him.

Publications

He wrote the books:

• Breathing in Irrespirable Atmospheres, first published in the 1930s at St. Catherine's Press in London
  London
  London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
  
  . It has 376 pages, c.250 photographs, and diagrams.

External links

• http://www.nbcd.org.uk/research_library/library/detail.asp?BookID=2 (the book)
• "The Latest Means of Deep Sea Exploration", May 1932, Popular Mechanics drawings of The Davis Deep-Sea Observation & Directional Chamber a little known invention of Sir Davis