Heinke Closed Helmet (Diving Equipment) 1845

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Heinke was a series of companies that made diving equipment in London, run by members of a Heinke family.

Charles Edwin Heinke (1818-1869) was born on September 4th 1818. He was the second son of a Pruissian immigrant, Gotthilf Frederick Heinke who was a successful coppersmith and had a family business at 103 Great Portland Street, London, since 1818. Charles later steered the family firm in a different direction towards submarine engineering and become a very successful manufacturer of diving equipment. His first helmet appeared around 1845.

Charles adopted the concept of a solid brass breastplate from (probably) William F. Saddler, instead of a beaten copper sheet one. Heinke's window design featured three similarly shaped, circular windows. They were not provided with outer protective grills. This contributed to better visibility, greater interchangeability of parts and made it easier to keep the windows clean.

Heinke worked hard to improve the Siebe style helmet and gradually gained an excellent reputation for reliability and for beeing better designed from the practical point of view.

He later introduced an additional exhaust valve on the front side of the breastplate, these days referred to as the "peppermill". This device made it possible for the diver to ascend and descend fast and as often as he wished. Heinke became world famous with the Pearler style helmet. These helmets featured a square breastplate. They were used in the pearling industry all over the world. The idea was later copied by companies like Siebe, TOA, Robison and Morse. Charles died in 1869 but his company continued.

As stated above, the first helmet came on the market around 1844, the last one in 1961.

Until 1905, helmets featured the butterfly style wingnuts, after that regular wingnuts were used.

Unlike Siebe Gorman, who had only one (main) series of numbers, Heinke used many series of numbers. You can therefor encounter a later style helmet with a low number. Today, not much is left of the Heinke archives. For this reason experts have not yet been able to crack the secret of the serial number system. The only handhold we have to put a date on a helmet so far is the classification above.

For a short while after Heinke was taken over in 1961, equipment was given "Siebe-Heinke" tags but eventually the name completely dissapeared. Some of Heinke's original equipment continued to be made and were available from Collins and Chambers Ltd.

Alderney 1998, S.G.?, Scott: 116.

Source: Wikipedia

Source: http://www.divinghelmet.nl/divinghelmet ... einke.html

Source: http://www.divingheritage.com/heinkekern.htm

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The wreck depicted on the stamp is four masted sailing ship Liverpool wrecked in 1902.

For more info about this ship See Topic: “Liverpool 1888”

Source: Alderney Post Office Lieflet.