The Bellows Pump of the Dutch Diving Helmet
Coming to Wonder Inventions on 13 December 2026.
Kent, 1823. When a harbour-side stable burns at Whitstable, the coppersmith brothers Charles and John Deane ram an old suit-of-armour helmet onto John's head and pump air to him with a fire bellows so he can drag horses out of the smoke — and from that accident comes a patent, a trade, and an obsession. The brothers and their pump-boy Bram Kettle carry the idea from a Kentish smithy to Augustus Siebe's Soho workshop, where it is soldered into a true open diving helmet fed by hose; they test it in the filthy Pool of London, ship it to Portsmouth, and are guided by Honor Trickett, widow of a man drowned in the Royal George, to the spot off Spithead where nine hundred souls went down in 1782. Sixty-five feet below, John walks the collapsed orlop deck among mud, bone and iron, slings a 32-pounder cannon — and is pinned when a beam gives way while a squall rolls in overhead. The story ends on Portsmouth's Gun Wharf with the first cannon of the Royal George swinging ashore, salt-black and crusted, and Honor laying her hand on the metal that has been underwater for fifty years.
About this story
- Length
- 10 illustrated pages
Who appears
- John Deane — Younger brother; the one who goes under
- Charles Deane — Elder brother; patent-holder, pump-master
- Bram Kettle — Pump-boy and apprentice
- Augustus Siebe — Soho engineer who builds the helmet properly
- Honor Trickett — Portsmouth widow of a Royal George drowned man; guide and shore-master
What happens on 13 December 2026
This story is finished and scheduled. On 13 December 2026 it opens here in full — every page illustrated, with narration you can listen to — as part of Wonder Inventions. Nothing on this page is a placeholder: the story exists, it has been reviewed, and this is its address.
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