28 Jun 2010
This is the earliest such treatise on diving known to exist in English. It was written around 1720-30.
Jacob Rowe was one of the pioneers of English diving. He probably wrote this monograph around 1730, almost certainly no earlier than 1720, the year in which he successfully salvaged more than 33 tons of silver from the wreck of the East India Company ship Vansittart. It is the earliest such treatise on diving known to exist in English.
It was upon his return from diving on the Vansittart that Rowe took out a patent for a diving machine, and he appears to have spent his working life adapting and refining its design. The Vansittart dive appears to have been by far his most successful, certainly in financial terms; later dives on other East India Company ships, as well as wrecks dating back to the Armada, are not recorded as returning anything like as much wealth.
Rowe also held other interests: he was referred to as Captain Rowe from as early as 1721, so was obviously a sea captain, and he also published works on navigation and improving the effectiveness of carriages by reducing the friction affecting their wheels.
The document shown here outlines the method of construction of the diving engine (or bell), as well as the instructions for using it. It suggests practical uses for the suit ranging from searching the sea bed, to lifting wrecks, to cleaning the hull of a ship while she remains afloat. The final chapter even deals with the use of gunpowder underwater.
However, it seems likely that Rowe had intended to write further on the subject, as the volume ends with him promising to ‘make Proposals of the utmost Improvements thereon as follows’. The work was never published in Rowe’s lifetime, or indeed until 2000, when it was published jointly between the National Maritime Museum and the Historical Diving Society, edited by Michael Fardell and Nigel Phillips.
Copies of the images on this page can be ordered via the Picture Library, or by contacting 020 8312 6600 / images@rmg.co.uk. Please quote the 'Repro ID' reference number displayed under the image.