Words Karen Darlow Photograph SSPL/Getty Images
Putting the vac round –a quick household chore that we take for granted but that makes the world of difference to our surroundings. It might take us less than ten minutes to clear the carpet of dust and crumbs with a vacuum cleaner, yet for our ancestors 120 years ago it was a new and remarkable concept. The bystanders in the picture above are gathered round one of Hubert Cecil Booth’s early vacuum cleaning machines, known as the Puffing Billy, which he patented in September 1901.