History of the Vacuum Flask

Abstract

SIR WILLIAM BRAGG, in the brief account of his lectures on Dewar's research published in NATURE of March 16, mentions that vacuum vessels were made in the early days by C. E. Muller, who was a German glassblower settled in London. Though this is undoubtedly correct so far as it goes, I think that it may leave the wrong impression that Muller made the first vacuum vessels. Such an impression would be unjust to the memory of Dewar's assistant, R. N. Lennox, who actually made the first vessels. They were pointed out to me by my father a few weeks afterwards, on Lennox's bench as Lennox's work. My father's assistant, George Gordon, who had seen Lennox making them, showed me the method which he had seen Lennox use, making a small cylindrical vessel as a demonstration for me. To make spherical vessels was rather beyond Gordon's skill, and later he got Lennox to show me this. The early vessels used by Dewar for some time were of Lennox's make, and if I am not mistaken, some of them are still preserved at the Royal Institution. I should recognize them without doubt. It is likely that Muller was the first to make such vessels outside the Royal Institution, but I do not think that he had arrived in London when Lennox first made them. I was in the habit of frequenting his shop as soon as I learnt of its existence.