Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
FRS (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was an English
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful
incandescent light bulb
An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxid ...
, and is the person responsible for developing and supplying the first incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy P ...
, London, in 1881.
In 1904 Swan was
knighted by
King Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...
,
awarded the Royal Society's
Hughes Medal
The Hughes Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London "in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences, particularly electricity and magnetism or their applications". Named after David E. Hughes, the medal is awarded with ...
, and was made an honorary member of the
Pharmaceutical Society. He had received the highest decoration in France, the
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
, when he visited the
1881 International Exposition of Electricity, Paris. The exhibition included displays of his inventions, and the city was lit with his electric lighting.
Early life
Joseph Wilson Swan was born in 1828 at Pallion Hall in
Pallion
Pallion is a suburb and electoral ward in North West Sunderland, in Tyne and Wear, England. Most of the buildings in the area were built during the Victorian Era and consist of large terraced houses built for shipbuilders, but also smaller one-s ...
, in the Parish of
Bishopwearmouth
Bishopwearmouth is a former village and parish which now constitutes the west side of Sunderland City Centre, merging with the settlement as it expanded outwards in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is home to the Sunderland Minster church, which ...
,
Sunderland,
County Durham. His parents were John Swan and Isabella Cameron.
[Davidson, Michael W., and The Florida State University. "Molecular Expressions]
Science, optics and you. Pioneers in optics. Joseph Swan (1828–1914)
" Last modification 26 February 2004. Retrieved 16 November 2009
Swan was apprenticed for six years to a
Sunderland firm of pharmacists/
druggists, ''Hudson and Osbaldiston''.
However, it is not known whether Swan completed his six-year apprenticeship, as both partners subsequently died.
He was said to have had an enquiring mind,
even as a child. He augmented his education with a fascination for his surroundings, the industry of the area, and reading at Sunderland Library.
He attended lectures at the Sunderland Atheneum.
Swan subsequently joined Mawson's, a firm of manufacturing chemists in
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
, started in the year of Swan's birth by John Mawson
(9 September 1819 – 17 December 1867), the husband of his sister, Elizabeth Swan (22 November 1822 – 2 August 1905). In 1846, Swan was offered a partnership at Mawson's.
This company subsequently existed as ''Mawson, Swan, and Morgan'' until 1973, formerly located on Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne, near
Grey's Monument
Grey's Monument is a Grade I listed monument in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was built in 1838 to commemorate Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (also known as Earl Grey), who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 18 ...
. The premises, now occupied by burger chain restaurant
Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
, can be identified by a line of
Victorian-style electric
street lamps
A street light, light pole, lamp pole, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or path. Similar lights may be found on a railway platform. When urban electric power distribution ...
in front of the store on Grey Street.
Swan lived at
Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead
Underhill is a large and imposing detached house, located at 99 Kells Lane in the Low Fell district of Gateshead, north-east England, United Kingdom. Built primarily from sandstone in Victorian architectural style, it was the home of Sir Jos ...
, a large house on Kells Lane North, where he conducted most of his experiments in the large
conservatory. The house was later converted into Beaconsfield School, a private fee-paying grant-aided co-educational grammar school.
[Electrical times, Volume 145]
p. 220. Retrieved 30 December 2010 Students there could still find examples of Swan's original electrical fittings.
Electric light
![carbonfilament](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Carbonfilament.jpg)
In 1850, Swan began working on a light bulb using
carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...
ised paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. By 1860, he was able to demonstrate a working device, but the lack of a good vacuum, and of an adequate electric source, resulted in an inefficient light bulb with a short life.
In August 1863 he presented his own design for a
vacuum pump
A vacuum pump is a device that draws gas molecules from a sealed volume in order to leave behind a partial vacuum. The job of a vacuum pump is to generate a relative vacuum within a capacity. The first vacuum pump was invented in 1650 by Otto ...
to a meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science. The design used
mercury falling through a tube to trap air from the system to be evacuated. Swan's design was similar in construction to the
Sprengel pump
The Sprengel pump is a vacuum pump that uses drops of mercury falling through a small-bore capillary tube to trap air from the system to be evacuated. It was invented by Hanover-born chemist Hermann Sprengel in 1865 while he was working in Lon ...
and predates
Herman Sprengel's research by two years. Furthermore, it is notable that Sprengel conducted his research while visiting London, and was probably aware of the annual reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Nonetheless, Joseph Swan and
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
are later reported to have used the Sprengel pump to evacuate their carbon
filament lamps.
In 1875, Swan returned to consider the problem of the light bulb with the aid of a better vacuum and a carbonised thread as a filament. The most significant feature of Swan's improved lamp was that there was little residual
oxygen
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as ...
in the
vacuum
A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or " void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often di ...
tube to ignite the filament, thus allowing the filament to glow almost white-hot without catching fire. However, his filament had low resistance, thus needing heavy copper wires to supply it.
Swan first publicly demonstrated his incandescent carbon lamp at a lecture for the Newcastle upon Tyne Chemical Society on 18 December 1878. However, after burning with a bright light for some minutes in his laboratory, the lamp broke down owing to excessive current. On 17 January 1879 this lecture was successfully repeated with the lamp shown in actual operation; Swan had solved the problem of incandescent electric lighting by means of a vacuum lamp. On 3 February 1879 he publicly demonstrated a working lamp to an audience of over seven hundred people in the lecture theatre of the
Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne
The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne (or the ''Lit & Phil'' as it is popularly known) is a historical library in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and the largest independent library outside London. The library is still avai ...
,
Sir William Armstrong
William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, (26 November 1810 – 27 December 1900) was an English engineer and industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing concern on Tyneside. He was also an eminent scientist, inventor ...
of
Cragside presiding. Swan turned his attention to producing a better carbon filament, and the means of attaching its ends. He devised a method of treating cotton to produce "parchmentised thread", and obtained British Patent 4933 on 27 November 1880. From that time he began installing light bulbs in homes and landmarks in England.
![Sir Joseph Swan blue plaque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Sir_Joseph_Swan_blue_plaque.jpg)
His house,
Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead
Underhill is a large and imposing detached house, located at 99 Kells Lane in the Low Fell district of Gateshead, north-east England, United Kingdom. Built primarily from sandstone in Victorian architectural style, it was the home of Sir Jos ...
, was the world's first to have working light bulbs installed. The Lit & Phil Library in Westgate Road,
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
, was the first public room lit by electric light during a lecture by Swan on 20 October 1880.
In 1881 he founded his own company, The Swan Electric Light Company, and started commercial production.
The
Savoy, a state-of-the-art theatre in the
City of Westminster, London, was the first public building in the world lit entirely by electricity.
[Burgess, Michael. "Richard D'Oyly Carte", ''The Savoyard'', January 1975, pp. 7–11] Swan supplied about 1,200 incandescent lamps, powered by an generator on open land near the theatre.
["The Savoy Theatre", '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', 3 October 1881 The builder of the Savoy,
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte (; 3 May 1844 – 3 April 1901) was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer, and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era. He built two of London's theatres and a hotel empire, while also establi ...
, explained why he had introduced Swan's electric light: "The greatest drawbacks to the enjoyment of the theatrical performances are, undoubtedly, the foul air and heat which pervade all theatres. As everyone knows, each
gas-burner consumes as much oxygen as many people, and causes great heat beside. The incandescent lamps consume no oxygen, and cause no perceptible heat." The first generator proved too small to power the whole building, and though the entire front-of-house was electrically lit, the stage was lit by gas until 28 December 1881. At that performance, Carte stepped on stage and broke a glowing lightbulb before the audience to demonstrate the safety of Swan's new technology. On 29 December 1881, ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' described the electric lighting as visually superior to gaslight.
The first private residence, other than the inventor's, lit by the new incandescent lamp was that of his friend,
Sir William Armstrong
William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, (26 November 1810 – 27 December 1900) was an English engineer and industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing concern on Tyneside. He was also an eminent scientist, inventor ...
at
Cragside, near
Rothbury
Rothbury is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the River Coquet. It is northwest of Morpeth and of Newcastle upon Tyne. At the 2001 Census, it had a population of 2,107.
Rothbury emerged as an important town be ...
, Northumberland. Swan personally supervised the installation there in December 1880. Swan had formed "The Swan Electric Light Company Ltd" with a factory at Benwell, Newcastle, and had established the first commercial manufacture of incandescent lightbulbs by the beginning of 1881.
Swan's carbon rod lamp and carbon filament lamp, while functional, were still relatively impractical owing to low resistance (needing very expensive thick copper wiring) and short running life.
While searching for a better filament for his light bulb, Swan inadvertently made another advance. In 1881, he developed and patented a process for squeezing
nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...
through holes to form conducting fibres. His newly established company (which by merger eventually became the Edison and Swan United Company) used Swan's
cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell w ...
filaments in their bulbs. The textile industry has also used this process.
The first ship to use Swan's invention was ''The City of Richmond'', owned by the Inman Line. She was fitted with incandescent lamps in June 1881. The
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
also introduced them to its ships soon after; with
HMS ''Inflexible'' having the new lamps installed in the same year.
An early employment in engineering was during the digging of the
Severn Tunnel
The Severn Tunnel ( cy, Twnnel Hafren) is a railway tunnel in the United Kingdom, linking South Gloucestershire in the west of England to Monmouthshire in south Wales under the estuary of the River Severn. It was constructed by the Great Western ...
, where the contractor
Thomas Walker installed "20-candlepower lamps" in the temporary pilot tunnels.
Swan was one of the early developers of the electric
safety lamp
A safety lamp is any of several types of lamp that provides illumination in coal mines and is designed to operate in air that may contain coal dust or gases, both of which are potentially flammable or explosive. Until the development of effectiv ...
for miners, exhibiting his first in Newcastle upon Tyne at the
North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers
The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers (NEIMME), commonly known as The Mining Institute, is a British Royal Chartered learned society and membership organisation dedicated to advancing science and technology in the N ...
on 14 May 1881. This required a wired supply, so the following year, he presented one with a battery and other improved versions followed. By 1886, a lamp with better light output than a flame safety lamp was in production by the Edison-Swan Company. However, it suffered from problems of reliability and was not a success. It took development by others over the next 20 years or so before effective electric lamps were in common use.
Conjunction with Edison
In what are considered to be independent lines of inquiry, Swan's incandescent electric lamp was developed at the same time that
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
was working on his incandescent lamp
[Maury Klein, The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America, Bloomsbury Publishing USA — 2010, Chapter 9 — The Cowbird, The Plugger, and the Dreamer] with Swan's first successful lamp and Edison's lamp both patented in 1879. Edison's goal in developing his lamp was for it to be used as one part of a much larger system: a long-life high-resistance lamp that could be connected in
parallel
Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
Computing
* Parallel algorithm
* Parallel computing
* Parallel metaheuristic
* Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel
* Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of ...
to work economically with the large-scale electric-lighting utility he was creating.
Swan's original lamp design, with its low resistance (the lamp could be used only in
series
Series may refer to:
People with the name
* Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series
* George Series (1920–1995), English physicist
Arts, entertainment, and media
Music
* Series, the ordered sets used in ...
) and short life span, was not suited for such an application.
Swan's strong patents in Great Britain led, in 1883, to the two competing companies merging to exploit both Swan's and Edison's inventions,
with the establishment of the
Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company. Known commonly as "Ediswan", the company sold lamps made with a cellulose filament that Swan had invented in 1881, while the Edison Company continued using
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
filaments outside of Britain. In 1892,
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
(GE) began exploiting Swan's patents to produce cellulose filaments, until they were replaced in 1904 by a GE developed "General Electric Metallized" (GEM) baked cellulose filaments.
In 1886, Ediswan moved production to a former
jute mill at
Ponders End
Ponders End is the southeasternmost part of Enfield, north London, centred on the Hertford Road. Situated to the west of the River Lee Navigation, it became industrialised through the 19th century, similar to the Lea Valley in neighbouring Ed ...
, North London. In 1916, Ediswan set up the UK's first radio
thermionic valve
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied.
The type known as a ...
factory at Ponders End. This area, with nearby
Brimsdown
Brimsdown is a neighbourhood of eastern Enfield in the London Borough of Enfield, north London, on the west side of the mid-to-lower Lea Valley.
Geography
The east of Brimsdown, that is, east of the eastern Lea Valley line is one of the borough ...
subsequently developed as a centre for the manufacture of thermionic valves,
cathode ray tubes, etc., and nearby parts of
Enfield
Enfield may refer to:
Places Australia
* Enfield, New South Wales
* Enfield, South Australia
** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb
** Enfield High School (South Australia)
...
became an important centre of the
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
industry for much of the 20th century. Ediswan became part of
British Thomson-Houston and
Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in the late 1920s.
Photography
When working with wet photographic plates, Swan noticed that heat increased the sensitivity of the silver bromide emulsion. By 1871, he had devised a method of using dry plates, and substituting
nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...
plastic for glass plates, thus initiating the age of convenience in photography. Eight years later, he patented
bromide paper
Photographic paper is a coated paper, paper coated with a light-sensitive chemical formula, like photographic film, used for making photographic prints. When photographic paper is exposed to light, it captures a latent image that is then Film deve ...
, developments of which are still used for black-and-white photographic prints.
In 1864, Swan patented the transfer process for making
carbon prints, a permanent photographic process. By adding the transfer step, Swan was able easily to make photographs with a full tonal range.
Later life
In 1894, Swan was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
(FRS), and in 1898 he was elected president of the
Institution of Electrical Engineers
The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) was a British professional organisation of electronics, electrical, manufacturing, and Information Technology professionals, especially electrical engineers. It began in 1871 as the Society of T ...
; at the time, Swan was one of its three honorary members, the other two being
Lord Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 182417 December 1907) was a British mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 53 years, he did important ...
and
Henry Wilde.
In September 1901, he was awarded the honorary degree of
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...
(D.Sc.) from
Durham University. He also served as president of the
Society of Chemical Industry
The Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) is a learned society set up in 1881 "to further the application of chemistry and related sciences for the public benefit".
Offices
The society's headquarters is in Belgrave Square, London. There are semi-in ...
in 1901, and in 1903 he was chosen first president of the
Faraday Society The Faraday Society was a British society for the study of physical chemistry, founded in 1903 and named in honour of Michael Faraday. In 1980, it merged with several similar organisations, including the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Che ...
.
In 1904, he was
knighted,
awarded the Royal Society's
Hughes Medal
The Hughes Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London "in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences, particularly electricity and magnetism or their applications". Named after David E. Hughes, the medal is awarded with ...
, and made an honorary member of the
Pharmaceutical Society.
In 1945, the London Power Company commemorated Swan by naming a new 1,554
GRT coastal
The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in ...
collier SS ''Sir Joseph Swan''.
[Sir Josepth Swan and the Invention of the Incandescent Electric Lamp by Kenneth R. Swan 1948]
Personal life
Swan married firstly Frances "Fanny" White, third daughter of William White, of
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
, at
Camberwell Chapel,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, on 31 July 1862. They had three surviving children: Cameron, Mary Edmonds, and Joseph Henry. Frances died on 9 January 1868 and he married secondly Hannah White, the younger sister of Frances, at
Neuchâtel, Switzerland, on 3 October 1871. They had five children: Hilda, Frances Isobel, Kenneth Rayden, Percival, and Dorothy. Sir Kenneth Rayden Swan was a
QC and an acknowledged authority on patent law.
Swan died in 1914 at his home in Overhill,
Warlingham
Warlingham is a village in the Tandridge district of Surrey, England, south of the centre of London and east of the county town, Guildford. Warlingham is the centre of a civil parish that includes Hamsey Green, a contiguous, smaller sett ...
, Surrey.
The funeral took place at All Saints' Church, Warlingham, on 30 May 1914, with interment taking place in the churchyard. Mourners included representatives of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent professional association and learned society headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that represents mechanical engineers and the engineering profession. With over 120,000 member ...
, and the Royal Society.
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Tyne & Wear Archives ServiceJoseph Swan collection
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swan, Joseph
1828 births
1914 deaths
People from Sunderland
19th-century English people
English inventors
English chemists
English physicists
Knights Bachelor
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
People associated with electricity
Fellows of the Royal Society