If I ask you to visualise ‘eccentric Victorian-era inventor’, there’s a good chance whatever you imagine will look pretty close to John Ernst Worrell Keely. Splendid mutton-chop sideburns and moustache, three-piece suits, steampunk machines with names like the “hydro-pneumatic pulsating vacuo-motor engine”: all the clichés are there.
But Keely was no stuffy gentleman scholar, harumphing his way incredulously through meetings of the Royal Society. Born in Philadelphia in 1837, he worked a range of jobs, including musician, carpenter, and carnival barker, before he announced that he had discovered a hitherto unknown force that could drive a motor without any external energy source.The Keely Motor Company was soon handsomely capitalised, and its investors eagerly awaited the launch of Keely’s machine.
Yet somehow, Keely’s device was alwaysready but needed some final adjustment or addition before it could be launched commercially. Promised demonstrations of the technology were continually pushed back. The nature of the ‘force’ being called upon changed, from something called “etheric force” to something called “vibratory sympathy”. Sometimes Keely’s machines would make an audible hiss of escaping air, which he insisted was actually “etheric vapour”. Unsurprisingly, investors became increasingly suspicious of Keely’s constant delays and postponements. His stubborn refusal to tell anyone how his machines worked or let experts inspect them even landed Keely in prison, briefly, for contempt of court. Yet somehow the promise of this magical new motor allowed Keely to maintain both funding and high-profile supporters for nearly a quarter of a century.
