Transcript

of

Lethbridge, John. Inventor of a Diving Apparatus.

by

W. Pengelly, FRS etc

In Miscellaneous Devonshire Gleanings, Trans. Devon. Assoc., 1881, Vol XIII., pp. 137-139.

Prepared by Michael Steer

John Lethbridge (1675-1759) was a wool merchant of Newton Abbot who invented a diving machine in 1715 It was used to salvage valuables from wrecks. This machine was an airtight oak barrel that allowed “the diver” to submerge long enough to retrieve underwater material. The article, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

In their sketch of Mr. John Lethbridge, of Newton Abbot, who invented early in the 18th century a very successful Diving apparatus, it is stated by the Lysonses that "The apparatus, about twenty years ago, was at Governor Holdsworth's, at Dartmouth, but it was then in a decaying state." (Devonshire, p. 569)

The authors just quoted state in a foot-note (p. 570) that their sketch of the clever and successful machinist was "from the information of Capt. Thomas Lethbridge, of the navy, a grandson of Mr. John Lethbridge." The Lysonses' Devonshire was published in 1822, so that, assuming that Capt. Thomas Lethbridge furnished the information not long before that date, the apparatus would appear to have been in the keeping of Governor Holdsworth about the end of the 18th century, that is fully 40 years after the death of the inventor, which occurred in December, 1759.

It seems somewhat strange that Capt. Lethbridge's curiosity had not been sufficiently ardent to enable him to speak with certainty respecting the actual fate, at the time he wrote, of a machine which made his grandfather famous, and had been very beneficial in its effect on the history of his own family. He seems, however, to have had no doubt that about twenty years ago it was at Governor Holdsworth’s, and was in a decaying state; and it must be admitted that his statement on the matter ought to be trustworthy.

It was accordingly copied by Mr. O. Blewitt, in the second edition of his Panorama of Torquay, published in 1832 (p. 261), and, in substance, by Mr. J. S. Amery in 1880, in his interesting paper on John Lethbridge and his Diving-Machine. (Trans. Devon. Assoc. xii 495.)

The letter from the late Governor A. H. Holdsworth to Mr. O. Blewitt, whence a passage respecting Mr. Brockedon was quoted above (p. 134), contains the following paragraph: "Of the history of Leathbridge " [sic] " or his diving bell I know nothing, and am, therefore, led to believe that you have mixed me up with some other person when you ask “whether I still possess the machine. I should like to get at anything connected with that affair."

At first sight we appear to have here a Slip connected with Devonshire - "The apparatus," says Captain Thomas Lethbridge, "was at Governor Holdsworth's at Dartmouth." Governor Holdsworth, writing at Dartmouth, in February, 1837, replied, "Of the history of Leathbridge or his diving bell I know nothing."

The solution of the problem lies probably in the suggestion made by Governor A. H. Holdsworth, in his letter just quoted. "I am led," he says, "to believe that you have mixed me up with some other person." The "some other person" was probably his own father, as the following statements appear to show.

Dr. Newman, in his Paper On the Antiquity of Dartmouth, (Trans. Devon. Assoc, iii. 130), says, "In 1725 the office of Governor" [of Dartmouth Castle] "was given to Fort-Major Arthur Holdsworth, and it continued in that family till 1860. When the late Governor died it became extinct The last Governor held the office just fifty years, though since 1832 no pay has been attached to the office." (op. cit. p. 134)

The last Governor - Arthur Howe Holdsworth - died at Torquay in 1860, and, accepting Dr. Newman's statement that he "held the office just fifty years," he must have succeeded his father in 1810 - about twelve, not "twenty years " before the publication of the Lysonses' Devonshire. The Governor Holdsworth they mentioned as being in possession of the machine, was, from the facts before us, not Mr. Blewitt's correspondent, but his father. According to the Gentleman's Magazine (vol. 77, Pt 2, p. 1053, 1807.) A. M. Holdsworth, Esq., was appointed Governor of Dartmouth Castle, vice Arthur Holdsworth, deceased.

It can scarcely be supposed that had the last Governor Holdsworth ever seen the machine, or understood its character, he would have called it a "Diving Bell" - a name to which it seems to have been by no means entitled. Moreover, he is known to have taken so much interest in machinery that one is prepared to find him writing, as he did to Mr. Blewitt in the passage quoted above, "I should like to get at anything connected with that affair." Such was his enthusiasm on kindred topics, that, in the letter now under notice, he writes to Mr. Blewitt, "I wish I could give you any information about Newcomen, as I have long taken a great interest about him I confess to you that it is with real regret that I have often heard such things said of Watt, who after all was but an improver; and the Inventor of that instrument now so common thro' the world totally forgotten. I have expressed that feeling in public in every way that has come within my means  but it is of little use, for ignorance gives to Watt the credit, and few take the pains to search beyond the surface of anything."

It cannot be supposed that a man of such tastes and feelings as the writer of these paragraphs could have utterly forgotten that he was at one time the possessor of a diving apparatus with which its inventor, born in a neighbouring part of the same county as himself, "had recovered from the bottom of the sea, in different parts of the globe, almost £100,000 for the English and Dutch merchants which had been lost by shipwreck." (See Trans. Devon. Assoc. xii, 495).