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Hubert Cecil Booth, born in Gloucester on 4 July, 1871, was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who in 1901 invented the vacuum cleaner. This was the very same year that he formed a consultancy for engineering. In the year 1903, he founded the British Vacuum Cleaner Company.  Compressed air was used to clean a railway carriage where dust clouds were blown around.
After witnessing this, the principle of the vacuum cleaner was conceived by him. At Earl’s Court in London, he was commissioned to work on the Ferris wheel in the year 1894.
Later on in Paris, Blackpool and in Vienna, he continued to work on structures that were very similar. In Scotland over Loch Etive, the Connel Ferry Bridge was all thanks to the genius of Hubert Cecil Booth in the year 1902. When in 1902 at the King Edward VII coronation at Westminster Abbey, the carpets in blue were cleaned by the vacuum machines of Booth, he and the machines received the biggest boost and became very popular. He passed away on 18 January, 1955.