Hubert Cecil Booth (4 July 1871 – 14 January 1955)[1] was an English engineer, best known for having invented one of the first powered vacuum cleaners.

[1] In December 1892 he entered the drawing office of Messrs Maudslay Sons & Field, Lambeth, London under Mr Charles Sells, as a civil engineer.

In this capacity he designed bridges and large ferris wheels for amusement parks in London, Blackpool, Paris, and Vienna.

Before Booth introduced his version of the vacuum cleaner, cleaning machines blew or brushed dirt away, instead of sucking it up.

As Booth recalled decades later, in 1901 he attended "a demonstration of an American machine by its inventor" at the Empire Music Hall in London.

Nicknamed the "Puffing Billy",[12] Booth's first petrol-powered, horse-drawn vacuum cleaner relied upon air drawn by a piston pump through a cloth filter.

[citation needed] Gaining the royal seal of approval, Booth's motorised vacuum cleaner was used to clean the carpets of Westminster Abbey prior to Edward VII's coronation in 1901.

[14] When cleaning the Royal Mint, upon leaving he was arrested as his machine had collected a massive amount of silver dust from the coins and he had forgotten to empty it.