page_title: History of underwater diving
section_title: Surface supplied diving suits
hierarchical_section_title: History of underwater diving / Surface supplied diving suits
caption_attribution_description: English: John Lethbridge's diving suit c.1710
context_page_description: The history of underwater diving starts with freediving as a widespread means of hunting and gathering, both for food and other valuable resources such as pearls and coral, By classical Greek and Roman times commercial applications such as sponge diving and marine salvage were established, Military diving also has a long history, going back at least as far as the Peloponnesian War, with recreational and sporting applications being a recent development. Technological development in ambient pressure diving started with stone weights for fast descent. In the 16th and 17th centuries diving bells became functionally useful when a renewable supply of air could be provided to the diver at depth, and progressed to surface supplied diving helmets - in effect miniature diving bells covering the diver's head and supplied with compressed air by manually operated pumps - which were improved by attaching a waterproof suit to the helmet and in the early 19th century became the standard diving dress.
  Limitations in mobility of the surface supplied systems encouraged the development of both open circuit and closed circuit scuba in the 20th century, which allow the diver a much greater autonomy.
context_section_description: In 1602, the Spanish military engineer Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont developed the first documented diving dress. It was tested the same year in the Pisuerga river (Valladolid, Spain). King Philip the Third attended the demonstration.
  Two English inventors developed diving suits in the 1710s. John Lethbridge built a completely enclosed suit to aid in salvage work. It consisted of a pressure-proof air-filled barrel with a glass viewing hole and two watertight enclosed sleeves. After testing this machine in his garden pond specially built for the purpose, Lethbridge dived on a number of wrecks: four English men-of-war, one East Indiaman, two Spanish galleons and a number of galleys. He became very wealthy as a result of his salvages. One of his better-known recoveries was on the Dutch Slot ter Hooge, which had sunk off Madeira with over three tons of silver on board.
  At the same time, Andrew Becker created a leather-covered diving suit with a windowed helmet. The suit used a system of tubes for inhaling and exhaling, and Becker demonstrated his suit in the River Thames at London, during which he remained submerged for an hour. These suits were of limited use as there was still no practical system for replenishing the air supply during the dive.
caption: John Lethbridge's diving dress built in the 1710s.
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