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  I am in `The Historical Diving Society' (c/o Nick Baker, 23 Brompton Drive,
Brierley Hill, West Midlands, DY5 3NZ, England, tel. 01384 896079). Their
newsletter, #14 (Dec 1995), pp 7-14 says that:-
  On 19 Dec 1838 W.E.Newton (a mechanical draughtsman who worked at the
British Office of Patents) patented (British patent 7695) a circular
single-stage demand regulator nearly a foot diameter strapped to the diver's
back and supplying air via a tube to a mouthpiece. That was long before modern
gas cylinders started to be made. It was intended to be supplied via a tube
with lowish-pressure air from a big reservoir which was on the surface. It was
fastened onto the diver by a harness which included a `buoyancy compensator
vest' supplied from the regulator. On 14 Nov 1838 a Frenchman called
Guillaumet patented the same device at Paris (patent 11429). It seems likely
that Guillaumet invented it and Newton acted as a UK patenting agent for him.
  The article also describes Rouquayrol and Denayrouze's 1866 demand
regulator. The French Navy issued it to ships and tested it extensively from
1866 to 1871. Its spherical `cylinder' could hold 1000 liters of air
compressed to up to 40 bars. But it lost out to the Siebe-style helmet because
of low duration unless surface-supplied.
  It remains to regret the c.50 lost years from the 1880's onwards that air
cylinders existed and nobody put a demand regulator on one to dive with.

  The article also shows a 1938 Seibe Gorman drawing of a standard diving
helmet fitted with a backpack oxygen rebreather instead of a surface airline.
No breathing bag; the diver's suit acted as the breathing bag.
  At the diving exhibition in Birmingham in October 1995 I saw a Draeger
(German) nitrox rebreather (with oxygen cylinder and air cylinder) intended to
be worn by a standard diver instead of a surface airline. No breathing bag;
the diver's suit acted as the breathing bag.

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