Background
Booth was born in Paris, France, although his family moved to Gloucester when we was 2 months old.
Headquarters of City & Guilds
Booth was born in Paris, France, although his family moved to Gloucester when we was 2 months old.
He was educated at Gloucester College and Gloucester County School under headmaster Reverend H. Lloyed Brereton. He completed a three-year course in civil engineering and mechanical engineering under Professor William Cawthorne Unwin Federal Reserve System. He completed the Diploma of Associateship (ACGI), coming second in the engineering department.
He also designed Ferris wheels, suspension bridges and factories. Later he became Chairman and Managing Director of the British Vacuum Cleaner and Engineering Company
In 1889 he entered the Central Technical College, City and Guild, London after passing the entrance examination. He became a student of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
In December 1892 he entered the drawing office of Messrs Maudslay Sons & Field, Lambeth, London under Mr Charles Sells, as a civil engineer
In this capacity he designed bridges and large ferris wheels for amusement parks in London, Blackpool, Paris, and Vienna. He worked on the design of engines for Royal Navy battleships.
After seeing a rather inadequate demonstration of a compressed air based cleaning system for railway carriages at Street Pancras station, Booth reasoned that sucking air through a filter might be a better system, and thus invented an early version of the vacuum cleaner which was manufactured by Fielding & Platt of Gloucester. His approach was better suited for industrial use than for household use, and his company was soon overtaken by his competitor, Hoover.
He received British patents for his work on February 18 and August 30, 1901, and his company continued to specialize in industrial vacuum cleaners.
Before Booth introduced his version of the vacuum cleaner, cleaning machines blew or brushed dirt away, instead of sucking it up. All modern vacuums are based on Booth"s principle.