English: American Jacob Perkins moved to England in 1819 to pursue his principal pursuit at the time, an engraving business for currency designed to prevent forgery. Perkins lived in England for the rest of his life, during which he continued to develop steam engines and other devices.

While in England, he also designed and had built a device which used a vapor-compression refrigeration cycle and obtained a patent for it, assigned on August 14, 1834, and entitled, “Apparatus and means for producing ice, and in cooling fluids.” It was the first working

device that used a vapor-compression refrigeration system. It was a closed-cycle device and it could operate continuously