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Hubert Booth was 
one of those 
happy inventors 
who had a 
brilliantly simple 
idea which 
proved brilliantly 
successful. His 
introduction of 
the vacuum 
cleaner meant 
that carpets 
never had to be 
taken outside and 
beaten again, and 
also assured him 
of at least a small 
place in history
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Booth trained as a 
civil engineer in 
Glasgow and 
worked on many 
major bridge 
projects in Britain 
and abroad. He 
also designed 
funfair Big 
Wheels for Paris, 
Vienna, London 
and Blackpool
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A hand-cranked 
vacuum cleaner 
was used on the 
carpet in West-
minster Abbey 
before the coron-
ation of Edward VII
in 1902. By the 
time that Queen 
Elizabeth's was
crowned vacuum
cleaners (1951 
model, right) 
were considerably
smaller, and 
powered by 
electricity
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The first vacuum 
cleaners were 
large industrial 
models, operated 
from the street 
with only the 
suction tube 
passed into the 
house. But by the 
Forties there 
were small hand-
held models for 
cleaning stairs 
and other nooks 
and crannies
#
The vacuum cleaner did not make Booth's name. It was William Hoover, 
an entrepreneur rather than an inventor, who popularized the device: it is 
thanks to him that in Britain people "hoover" carpets to get them clean, 
never "booth" them
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In 1951 the 
humble vacuum 
cleaner was put 
to work as a 
novel musical 
instrument by 
George Weldon, 
conductor of the 
Halle Orchestra. 
Many cleaners 
and their owners 
turned up for 
the auditions
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Advertisers went 
to extraordinary 
lengths to prove 
the power of 
their vacuum 
cleaners. This 
Sixties model had 
enough suction to 
lift a weight 
equivalent to that 
of a large man
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