Help with Milbro Underwater Swimming Equipment Research

[DRW]

One of my retirement projects is to research early British underwater swimming equipment manufacturers, which is a very neglected field compared with the work done done States-side to chronicle the early American diving gear industry on http://www.skindivinghistory.com/ and the like. I don't want to restrict myself to the major British players of the 1950s, e.g. E. T. Skinner/Typhoon, Heinke, Siebe-Gorman and Dunlop. I also want to include the minor contributors in my investigation such as Abbey Corinthian, Featherwate, Sportcraft, W. W. Haffenden (Submarine/Britmarine), Shark Brand and Milbro (Millard Brothers), which concentrated largely on basic gear.

I recently acquired some early issues of Triton, the then journal of the British Sub-Aqua Club. The image above is a scan of a Milbro underwater swimming equipment advertisement that appeared on page 27 of the July-August 1957 edition. The ad mentions an "illustrated catalogue", which for want of an original copy I am trying to reconstruct using ads such as the one above. Thanks to this and other ads, I now have stock numbers and pictures for Milbro dive masks, breathing tubes and swim fins. What I don't have are details of the "harpoon guns" also mentioned in the ad. I've attempted lengthy online searches, without success, only finding plenty of textual and visual information about Milbro airguns, catapults, fishing tackle and other non-underwater sporting goods. Can anyone help with pictures or memories of these Milbro harpoon guns so I can complete my reconstructed late-1950s Milbro underwater catalogue and make it available online? Did these Milbro spearguns even exist during the 1950s other than on the drawing board? Or perhaps Millard Brothers simply "carried" other manufacturers' harpoon guns?

 

[DRW]

Since posting my original message, I have gone ahead with my project, using what data I had from the literature of the time and reconstructing Milbro's 1950s product range in the form of a PDF file that can be seen below:



This eight-page publication is free to read, download and print off. I hope it is of interest to anyone curious about the mid-twentieth-century history of underwater swimming. It remains a work in progress and I am happy to edit what I have written if I receive additional information about Milbro's sub-aqua range. Comments welcome!

I am currently in the writing-up stage of several other documents about British companies (e.g. Featherwate, Shark Brand) serving recreational breath-hold underwater swimming during the 1950s. More details on request.

 

[hteas]

Thanks DRW. Pretty similar to my early Skin Diver magazines.

 

[DRW]

Thanks for responding, hteas, and confirming that equipment offerings in the 1950s were similar on both sides of the "Pond". I have now completed my "catalogue reconstructions" for Featherwate and Shark Brand and here they are:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOERkJlMG11UllQNWc
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOEU0dab3JGWWRST28

 

[cdavis]

thanks DRW. I can actually remember seeing some of that stuff, or similar, in the flesh

 

[DRW]

Thank you, cdavis. I am currently working on a catalogue reconstruction for the Dunlop Aquafort series of drysuits, wetsuits and basic diving gear, which were marketed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I then plan to turn my attention to a reconstruction of the product list of the 1950s French spearfishing goods manufacturer Hurricane. When I've finished each reconstruction, I'll post information here.

 

[hteas]

Thanks DRW! Fun to see this stuff again. I was wondering about Hurricane. The Hurricane mask I had as a kid leaked constantly, but then so did all the others.

 

[DRW]

Here, finally, is my "reconstruction" of a Hurricane catalogue. I have given the file its initial proofreading, but I'm sure there will still be plenty to correct. Please let me know if you find anything untoward. My underlying motivation is pure pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, but I still like to get things right. I am least confident about the "harpoon gun" section, as it's not an area where I have in-depth knowledge. I have relied heavily on historical and contemporary sources for my information and the aim is to create a comprehensive catalogue with short entries for each item of gear to benefit the lay person, not a learned treatise on, say, speargun development through the decades.

Anyway, here goes:

DRW

 

[DRW]

Just realised that I haven't posted my Dunlop Aquafort catalogue reconstruction as well. Here it is:

DRW