Trevor Hampton

(Captain) Trevor Hampton AFC (28 November 1912 - 21 February 2002) was one of the United Kingdom's first scuba divers and helped to develop sport diving in the UK.

Trevor Arthur Hampton was born in Birmingham on 28 November 1912. He was an apprentice at the Austin Motor Company and raced motorcycles on the Isle of Man. He was an avid fan of boating and sailing and at the age of 23 bought a 27-foot (8.2 m) yacht but had to give it up because his wife was chronically seasick. He joined the RAF before the Second World War becoming a pilot on a Wellington bomber. He later became a senior test pilot, raised to the rank of Flight Lieutenant and received the Air Force Cross. While in the RAF at Lossiemouth in Scotland he started diving, making a crude open-circuit scuba set from a gas mask and ex-RAF aircrew oxygen cylinders.

After World War II he bought a boat took up sailing again but had to give it up because of a knee injury. He set up business as a marine surveyor and yacht broker at Warfleet Creek in Dartmouth, Devon in England. He read Jacques Cousteau's book The Silent World and bought a Cousteau-type aqualung from Siebe Gorman, which had just started making them. He then took several courses on diving.

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