William Howard Livens William Howard Livens DSO MC ( 28 March 1889 – 1 February 1964 ) was an engineer , a soldier in the British Army and an inventor particularly known for the design of chemical warfare and flame warfare weapons . Resourceful and clever , Livens ’ successful creations were characterised by being very practical and easy to produce in large numbers . In an obituary , Sir Harold Hartley said " Livens combined great energy and enterprise with a flair for seeing simple solutions and inventive genius . " Livens is best known for inventing the Livens Projector a simple mortar - like weapon that could throw large drums filled with inflammable or toxic chemicals . In World War I , the Livens Projector became the standard means of delivering gas attacks and it remained in the arsenal of the British army until the early years of the Second World War . Early life . Livens ' parents were Frederick Howard Livens ( 1854 – 1948 ) and Priscilla Abbott . They married on 9 October 1886 at the Upton Congregational Church . Frederick Howard Livens was Chief Engineer and later Chairman of Ruston and Hornsby in Lincoln . Frederick and Priscilla had three children , William Howard and two younger daughters . In 1903 , Livens was sent to Oundle School , a famous public school located in the ancient market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire , England . While there , he enrolled in the Officer Training Corps ( OTC ) wherein he served with the rank of sergeant . On leaving school in 1908 , Livens went to Christ ' s College at the University of Cambridge from 1908 to October 1911 . There he enrolled in the college OTC and served with the rank of private and he was captain of the Cambridge rifle team . He was a crack shot with a rifle , making a record score in a competition with a team from Oxford University and also an excellent shot with a pistol . Livens trained as civil engineer , and was for a while an assistant editor for Country Life magazine . But , when the First World War started , he joined the British Army . World War I . On 4 August 1914 , on graduating from the Officer Training Corps , Livens applied for a commission in the Royal Engineers . He was enrolled as a Second Lieutenant on 30 September 1914 and he was given a clerical post in the Motorcycle signalling section at Chatham . Livens ' experience of the OTC and his enthusiasm for target shooting prepared him well for at least some aspects of Army life : Army life did not suppress Livens ' creativity and he turned his mind to the problem of making better weapons . On his own initiative , he fitted out makeshift laboratories at his Chatham barracks bedroom and in the officers ' garage . For a firing range he used vacant land near one of the old forts which overlooked the Thames estuary . Here he worked on developing flame throwers and small mortars to throw oil and gas . Livens ' inventive work was prompted by thoughts of revenge for perceived German atrocities . According to Simon Jones ' book " World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment " , on learning of the sinking of the luxury liner " RMS Lusitania " in May 1915 with loss of 1 , 100 lives including , apparently , his wife , he vowed to kill an equal number of Germans . It was to this end that he began experimenting with gas and flame projectors of various types and continued in his work even after hearing that his wife had not , after all , been on board the " Lusitania " . This account cannot be literally true because Livens did not get married until 1916 . Charles Foulkes who became Livens ' commanding officer and who later wrote " Gas ! The Story of the Special Brigade " mentions " a strong personal feeling " connected with the sinking of the " Lusitania " without being more specific . According to " Who ' s Who in World War One " by John Bourne , it was the first use of poison gas by the Germans at the Second Battle of Ypres on 22 April 1915 that prompted Livens ' vengeful ambitions . This alternative account is consistent with Livens ' later statement that he began his experimental work at the end of April 1915 . Late in August 1915 , Livens left Chatham to join one of the newly formed Royal Engineer Special Gas Companies where he was one of very few officers to have a background in engineering rather than chemistry . At the time , gas warfare was very primitive : heavy cylinders of poison gas were manhandled to the front trenches and their contents simply vented out through metal pipes relying on a breeze to carry the toxic cloud over the enemy trenches . But the wind could be fickle and change in its direction : the first British gas attack at Loos was a disaster . Livens developed the use of long rubber hoses to carry the gas to an optimum location for release and of a manifold that reduced the number of parapet pipes by connecting four cylinders to a single pipe , these improvements helped make the system more reliable . Major - General Foulkes described him as a " go getter " , but also as unfamiliar with military protocol . Foulkes later recalled Livens ' part in the preparation of a gas attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt : Livens was soon put in charge of Z company , a special unit that was given the responsibility of developing a British version of the German flamethrower that had recently been deployed on the Western Front . Four of Livens ' massive fixed flame projector - the " Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector " - were to be used on 1 July 1916 at the start of the Battle of the Somme . Constructed in underground chambers two were knocked out by German artillery before the offensive . The other two were effective in demoralising the German defenders . Impressive as it was , the limited range and the immobility of the weapon severely limited its usefulness except in specific circumstances such as those seen in its use at the Somme , and the project was only used once more in 1917 . The remains of one of these projectors have been discovered and excavated in 2010 . One day , during an attack on the Somme , Z company encountered a party of Germans who were well dug in . Grenades did not succeed in shifting them , so Livens threw in two five gallon oil drums ; the burning oil was so effective that Livens ' comrade , Harry Strange , wondered whether it would be better to use containers to carry the flame to the enemy rather than relying on a complex flame thrower . Reflecting on the incident , Livens and Strange considered how a really large shell filled with fuel might be thrown . Although the key idea of throwing a large container of oil was due to Strange , it was Livens who went on to develop a large , but simple , mortar that could throw a three gallon drum of oil which would burst when it landed … Livens ' new weapon was used for the first time on the morning of 23 July 1916 : twenty oil projectors were fired just before an attack in the battle of the Somme at Pozières – the effect was limited . Next , thirty projectors were fired at the eastern corner of High Wood on 18 August with more encouraging results and another attack on 3 September was highly successful . Following these attacks , Livens came to the attention of General Gough who was impressed by his ideas and " wangled " everything that he needed . The new weapon was developed into the Livens Projector which consisted of a simple tube closed by a hemisphere at one end . It was half buried in the ground at an angle of 45 degrees and pointing in the required direction . It was then loaded with a single shot with an amount of propellant calculated to effect the desired range . Preparing a battery of projectors for an attack required a lot of preparation , this was not a serious problem in the conditions of static trench warfare and the weapon was so simple and inexpensive that hundreds – and on occasions thousands – of projectors could be fired simultaneously catching the enemy by surprise . Z Company rapidly developed the Livens Projector , increasing its range from the original , first to and they eventually produced an electrically triggered version with a range of . The Livens Projector was modified to fire canisters of poison gas rather than oil . This system was tried in secret , at Thiepval in September 1916 and Beaumont - Hamel in November . The Livens Projector was able to deliver a high concentration of gas a considerable distance and each canister delivered as much gas as several chemical warfare artillery shells . The Livens Projector was used in a series of gas attacks during October 1916 and a number of officers took a close interest in the results . Livens had witnessed some projector firings from the vantage of an aircraft and in his report he estimated that " … if the projectors were used on a large scale the cost of killing Germans could be reduced to sixteen shillings each . " This report was sent to the Ministry of Munitions and Livens was returned to England soon afterwards to help develop a standard projector and drum . The Livens Projector became a preferred means by which the British Army delivered a chemical attack and its production was given a high priority , the total for the Allies of the Great War eventually exceeded 150 , 000 units . Livens , " who was always full of ideas " gave up the command of Z company and became a liaison officer between Foulkes ' Special Brigade and the Ministry of Munitions in which role he remained for the last two years of the war . Livens continued to improve his projector and to design other weapons for trench warfare , some of which were useful , others not . For example , he experimented with attempts to cut barbed wire using large quantities of explosives . A witness to one trial described orange box es filled with explosives and fired from a hole in the ground in the manner of a shell fougasse . This system failed because the explosives tended to detonate ineffectually in mid - air – a sight that was described as being : " A most impressive picture of the Day of Judgement " . A variation of the Livens Projector prototype was also tested with a view to cutting wire ; Major - General Foulkes later recalled : Livens ' wire - cutting ideas , were characteristically simple but ultimately unsuccessful ; but he was never put off if a weapon failed to come up to expectation . Livens ' work was dangerous and he showed no lack of physical courage . On one occasion , while testing a service gas mask against Hydrogen sulfide ( HS ) ; the gas penetrated almost immediately and Livens fell unconscious though he recovered quickly . During the war , Livens was awarded the Military Cross on 14 January 1916 and the Distinguished Service Order on 1 January 1918 . There are no published citations for his decorations , this may be due to the sensitive nature of his work . Livens was demobilised from the army on 11 April 1919 . Personal life . At some time during 1916 Livens married Elizabeth Price . They had three daughters . Between the wars . After the First World War , Livens , being of independent means , no longer had any incentive to produce new inventions and his life was relatively uneventful . Just before the end of the First World War , Livens wrote a patent for an improved version of his projector and in mid - June 1919 , Livens and his father jointly wrote a patent for an improved projectile – the principal enhancement being the construction of strong but light - weight casing by using drawn manufacturing technique . In 1920 , Livens applied to the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors in respect of his wartime work on flamethrowers and the Livens Projector . He had to wait for a hearing , which was complicated by the fact that his old comrade Harry Strange also made a claim in connection with the invention . The hearing was delayed until 27 May 1922 by which time Livens had agreed that Strange should have a share of the " plunder " from any award that might be obtained . The hearing was detailed and a number of witnesses were called including the recently retired General Gough and Charles Howard Foulkes who was then a colonel . Livens was awarded £500 for his work on flamethrowers and £4 , 500 for the Livens projector and its ammunition . ( A considerable sum : £5 , 000 in 1922 is equivalent to £ in . ) In 1924 , Livens invented a small dishwasher suitable for use in a domestic setting . It had all the features of a modern dishwasher , including a front door for loading , a wire rack to hold crockery and a rotating sprayer . According to family tradition , Livens built a prototype for the benefit of the family ; but when it was tried out by their maidservant , she was later found in tears with water flooding across the floor . At that point the experiment was abandoned . Livens became interest in Spiritualism . He attended a number of séance s , including on 15 November 1932 witnessing a séance with the famous medium Rudi Schneider , although in this case it was a null result — nothing happened . Livens was an honorary vice - president of the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain and later he was a great friend of Lord Dowding who had similar interests . World War II . At the outbreak of war , Livens was offered the RAF rank of Air Commodore . However , he did not enlist , preferring to make his contribution to the war effort as a civilian - in which role he was free to disagree with his seniors . In 1940 , as a German invasion of Britain threatened , the British developed a number of innovative flame warfare weapons . Livens joined the team of developers working at the newly formed Petroleum Warfare Department under the directorship of Sir Donald Banks . Banks described Livens thus : The Petroleum Warfare Department experimented with several proposed systems , including a number suggested by Livens . These included a system resembling his projector to send " flaming comets " onto the landing beaches , but the suggestion with the most promise was the flame fougasse and it was widely adopted . A flame fougasse comprised a 40 gallon light steel drum filled with petroleum mixture and a small , electrically detonated explosive as a propellant charge . The barrel was dug into the roadside with a substantial overburden and camouflaged . When the Ammonal - based propellant charge was detonated , it caused the barrel to rupture and shoot a flame wide and long . Tens of thousands of flame fougasse barrels were deployed . Almost all were removed before the end of the war , although , incredibly , a few were missed and their remains have lasted to the present day . The flame fougasse has remained in army field manuals as a battlefield expedient ever since . Livens ' wife , Elizabeth , died on 18 July 1945 after a long illness . After World War II . On 22 July 1947 , Livens married Arron Perry at St Paul ' s Church , Winchmore Hill . Livens was briefly interested in photography . In the 1950s , Livens patented inventions relating to photography . Livens enjoyed sailing small boats and was a member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club . Livens died at a London hospital on 1 February 1964 . His remains were cremated at Golders Green on Saturday 8 February with the request that donations to Cancer Research should be made in place of flowers . He was survived by his three daughters and left an estate with a value estimated at 82 , 561 ( about £ in ) .