With the gradual reduction in use of the ladies’ fan following the First World War the Company started to take an increasing interest in mechanical fans. In 1939 the Court formally recognised this modern form of the craft as a logical extension to the Company’s sphere of interests and resolved to play an active part in supporting the vigorous and innovative heating, ventilating and air conditioning industry. Consequently, after the intervention of the Second World War, in 1948 the Company elected B Donald Hughes as its first Master who was a mechanical fan maker.
Through The War
The histories of the fan and the bellows are closely connected. There is evidence that bellows were in use in Mesopotamia in around 2000 BC and a little later in Egypt. Then, in about 400 BC the Chinese invented a double-action piston-type bellows for furnaces concerned with the production of cast iron – about 2000 years before that metals application in the West.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) made use of fans in two of his designs, the power for one being the use of hot rising currents of air, and the other by clockwork with a falling weight regulated by a fly. However, the greatest incentive to the development of fans was the mining industry.
In the 16th Century the extraction of coal, metal ores and other substances was severely hampered by bad ventilation. Georgious Agricola published ‘RE DE METALLICA’ in 1556, a detailed description of the earliest attempts at ventilation in mines. They embodied many of the principles which later developed into highly sophisticated airflow systems. Agricola’s famous work became the textbook on mining and metallurgy but his ventilation methods were not widely applied for nearly two centuries because of the lack of knowledge of the properties of air and man’s requirements for health and safety.
Greater Use Of Fans
Incorporated in 1709 during the reign of Queen Anne but very active as the Guild of Fan Makers from at least the reign of Charles II, today’s Fan Makers’ Company is the youngest of the ‘old’ City Livery Companies being the last to receive a Royal Charter for nearly 300 years and becoming the 76th Livery Company in order of precedence. Those that have followed have usually been incorporated by the City alone.
The Company, like other Livery Companies, is one of those sturdy oaks rooted in the past but maintaining its strength through new ideas and adaptation, in our case to the exciting of the aerospace age and renewing it’s freshness year by year.
Use In Modern Day
Incorporated in 1709 during the reign of Queen Anne but very active as the Guild of Fan Makers from at least the reign of Charles II, today’s Fan Makers’ Company is the youngest of the ‘old’ City Livery Companies being the last to receive a Royal Charter for nearly 300 years and becoming the 76th Livery Company in order of precedence. Those that have followed have usually been incorporated by the City alone.
The Company, like other Livery Companies, is one of those sturdy oaks rooted in the past but maintaining its strength through new ideas and adaptation, in our case to the exciting of the aerospace age and renewing it’s freshness year by year.