3-028-573 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Experiments with new life-saving apparatus on the Thames, 1869. Demonstration of '...Captain J. B. Stoner's apparatus for saving life at sea in case of shipwreck...Captain Stoner is an officer of the Federal army of the United States; and his representative or agent now in London is Mr. Craddock, also an American, who is accompanied by his wife...The apparatus is a dress which may be worn above the ordinary clothes, and which consists...of a large flexible cork belt...[and] an indiarubber garment, made in one piece, covering the whole person from head to foot...[Also supplied is] a tin case or box...[which] may be stored with biscuits, sandwiches, sausages,...a flask of brandy, some tobacco, or anything else to keep a man alive for a week. Or he may have a loaded revolver to kill sharks and pirates...Mr. and Mrs. Craddock only took three minutes and a half to attire themselves in the complete floating dress, and to jump from a barge into the river at Cremorne [Gardens]. Vanishing for one moment beneath the water, they promptly reappeared, as secure and comfortable as if they sat in two chairs upon shore...Our Illustration shows Mr. Craddock, in his floating dress, standing on the deck of the barge...while Mrs. Craddock is still in the water'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.