Hubert Cecil Booth
Engineer
Best known as the inventor of the vacuum cleaner, this English engineer also designed ships for the Royal Navy and Ferris wheels and bridges for numerous European amusement parks.
After studying mechanical and civil engineering at London's Central Technical College, he began his career at the Maudslay Sons & Field firm in the Lambeth district of London.
He devised his idea for the modern vacuum cleaner after watching a failed railway cleaning demonstration.
He married the daughter of flour mill owner Francis Tring Pearce.
Building upon the ideas of Booth and W.H. Hoover, entrepreneur James Dyson designed a bagless vacuum cleaner.