4. First case study – the subdivision of the light - HM Treasury

F05 Ch4 Subdivision of the light.doc
05/04/2006 19:34:00
Technological roulette – a multi-disciplinary study of the dynamics of innovation in electrical, electronic
and communications engineering.
4. First case study – the subdivision of the light
Swan’s partner, John Mawson, was killed in an industrial accident in 1867, throwing
the responsibility for all of the activities of the firm on to him and, for the next few years,
he was left with little freedom for his research activities. What little time he had was spent
mainly on improvements in photography.
The business of Mawson & Swan continued to expand, but Swan coped with this by
delegating management of the various interests to trusted employees. This permitted him
to devote his attention once again to the development of the electric lamp.
In the years 1877-8 the daily press, notably the Times Times, 3.6.1878, 26.10.1878 began to
publish articles on the subject of electric lighting and to discuss the comparative merits of
the various systems which were becoming available. All of the systems involved the
principle of lighting by electric arc, a form of illumination well adapted for providing large
centres of light, but not inherently suited for furnishing a number of small independent
points of light. No one at this date had succeeded in supplying a practical solution for “the
subdivision of the electric light,” an over-riding problem in those days of series dynamos
and arc lighting. Electricians were busily engaged in devising apparatus and systems of
distribution to overcome this difficulty, which was the principal obstacle to the general
adoption of electricity for domestic illumination.
Swan was convinced that the solution of the problem lay in the incandescence in
vacuo of a thin continuous high-resistance carbon conductor of the type with which he had
been experimenting intermittently for the past thirty years. Nevertheless, he was still able
to devote only a small proportion of his time to this matter, due to the demands of the
business of Mawson and Swan.
In the autumn of 1878 Swan visited Paris for an International Exhibition of Industry.
His firm was exhibiting chemicals, including pharmaceutical opium purified by a special
process which he and Barnard Proctor had recently invented GB Pat 4765/1877 and he also
wished to further his interest in electric lighting. On this visit he was impressed by a
display of electric lighting at the Gaiety Theatre. He wrote “The effect is good, but not by
any means what is wanted for practical use. I am strongly inclined to give my plan for
dividing the current to the public through the Times.” Swan 1929,p56 Both inside the
Exhibition, and at the Place and Avenue de l’Opéra, were brilliant displays of arc lights,
whilst the Magasin du Louvre was illuminated with seventy Jablochkoff candles.
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