What was John Barber’s 1791 gas-turbine engine design?

In 1791, John Barber of England received the first patent that approximated the modern gas-turbine engine.

Barber’s design featured the essential components found in today’s engines, including a compressor, a combustion chamber, and a turbine. Specifically, his design utilized separate reciprocating compressors to supply air to a fuel-fired combustion chamber. The resulting hot jet of gas was directed through nozzles onto an impulse wheel, with the intended power output sufficient to drive both the compressor and an external load.1

Although Barber’s design incorporated these fundamental elements, no working model was ever constructed. Due to the low efficiency of the available components at the time, the device would not have been functional.1