AIR CAR HALL OF FAME

Luke Henry Hancock

1900: "...at work for a number of years on a compressed air engine... that promises to revolutionize the power of the world...the invention can be attached to almost any engine, and the compressed air takes the place of steam... a ten-horsepower engine can be operated to its fullest capacity with five pounds of compressed air." E. F. Russell made similar claims about a compressed air engine a few years later in Larimore, North Dakota, about 100 miles from where Luke Hancock lived.

Invention Summary
What the Inventor Claimed
What the Publicity Stated

Inventor Biographical
Patents
Work Experience
Family Background
Personality
Legal Problems?
Articles & Graphics

Invention Summary

What the Inventor Claimed

"After getting started the machine is virtually a perpetual affair."

What the Publicity Stated

A few local newspaper articles, nothing else.

Inventor Biographical

Patents

US Patent 701199, May 27, 1902, Shoe-lace Fastener

Work Experience

carter (1861), laborer (1869), railway laborer (1871, 1881), engine fitter (1884), machinist (1885-1886, 1891), engineer (1900), engine fitter (1910), wood dealer (1916), farm laborer (1920)

Family Background

Luke Henry Hancock was born November 19, 1843 in Somersetshire, England, and baptized on December 15, 1844 in Olveston Parish, Gloucestershire where his parents lived their whole adult life. His parents were Thomas Hancock, a farm laborer, and his wife Eliza. Luke had older siblings Thomas, Jane and Mark, and younger siblings Eliza, George, Mary A., Sarah, Rebecca, and Charlotte. The family lived in Tockington, Olveston. On May 17, 1869, Luke married Louisa Helen Mitchell in Islington, Middlesex, where they lived till at least 1871. Their sons Thomas Mitchell and William Sayre were born there. Their children Elizabeth Gregory and Fred Gregory were born in Carlton, Nottinghamshire where the family lived from at least 1879 to 1881.

By 1884, the family had moved to the suburbs of Ottawa, Canada where their daughter Louisa H. was born. Their son George Henry was born in Canada in 1887. The family then moved to Fargo, Cass County, North Dakota where Luke became a naturalized US citizen in 1890. Their daughter Mabel Ellen was born in North Dakota in 1892. Eliza married Leon Mason Garner and Mabel married Charlie Stevenson. Both women lived out their lives in the Nord/Chico area of California.

1900 was a big year for the Hancock family. That year, 13-year-old George allowed himself to be lowered head-first into a well by neighbors in order to rescue a 2-year-old boy who had fallen into the well. Two months later, Luke publicized his air engine in a local newspaper, and a few other newspapers picked up the story.

Around 1901, Luke and Louisa, along with George and Mabel, moved to Nord, California, where they spent the rest of their lives. By this time, Louisa had given birth to ten children, six of whom lived to adulthood. Luke had his own wood dealership for many years. He died at home of a stroke on January 20, 1926. Louisa died two years later.

Luke's son William Sayre Hancock stayed in North Dakota where he became a newspaper publisher. William's older brother Thomas Mitchell Hancock moved to Arizona and southern California where he was also a newspaper publisher. Their younger brother Fred Gregory Hancock moved to Hibbing, Minnesota where he ran the printing presses of the Daily Tribune for at least 25 years.

When their brother George--the one who had rescued a baby from a well--was critically injured in a trucking collision at the age of 48, the Chico newspapers reported on his progress daily until he expired a week after the accident. George was a business owner, a truck driver, a tractor engineer, and had managed a ranch for 15 years.