St George William Lane Fox-Pitt (born 14 September 1856 in Malta, died 6 April 1932 in South Eaton Place) was a British electrical engineer and student of psychic phenomena.
His parents were Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane-Fox (1827–1900) and Alice Margaret (1828–1910, née Stanley). His younger sister was the essayist Agnes Geraldine Grove. [1] On the death of his father's cousin Horace Pitt-Rivers, 6th Baron Rivers, the family took the name Fox Pitt-Rivers on 25 May 1880.
In 1878, Fox-Pitt was granted a patent on a light bulb with a platinum-iridium filament. The patent also describes a system for power distribution using incandescent lamps in parallel. [2]
On 12 December 1879, Charles F. Brush founded the Anglo-American Electric Light Company Ltd in the UK, and in the same year acquired the patent rights to produce the Lane-Fox incandescent lamp. On 24 March 1880, he founded a new company, Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation, which took over the previous one.
About 1880, Fox-Pitt is said to have successfully experimented with charred plant fibres as the filament material. That was about the same time as the development of the light bulb with carbon filament by Edison in the United States. [3] By 1883, Fox-Pitt had obtained further patents.
Fox-Pitt wrote books on the philosophy of science, education, and social problems. He was temporarily Vice-President of the Moral Education League and organized the International Moral Education Congress. He was also one of the first active members of the Society for Psychical Research. [2]
In 1891, he repurchased the patent rights of the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation and built himself a small lamp factory.
In 1898, he participated in a railway concession in Ecuador. [4] [5]
In 1899, he married Lady Edith Gertrude Douglas (1874–1963), the daughter of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry. [6] [7]
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An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic which secures the lamp in the socket of a light fixture, which is often called a "lamp" as well. The electrical connection to the socket may be made with a screw-thread base, two metal pins, two metal caps or a bayonet mount.
An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a filament that is heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb that is either evacuated or filled with inert gas to protect the filament from oxidation. Electric current is supplied to the filament by terminals or wires embedded in the glass. A bulb socket provides mechanical support and electrical connections.
A halogen lamp is an incandescent lamp consisting of a tungsten filament sealed in a compact transparent envelope that is filled with a mixture of an inert gas and a small amount of a halogen, such as iodine or bromine. The combination of the halogen gas and the tungsten filament produces a halogen-cycle chemical reaction, which redeposits evaporated tungsten on the filament, increasing its life and maintaining the clarity of the envelope. This allows the filament to operate at a higher temperature than a standard incandescent lamp of similar power and operating life; this also produces light with higher luminous efficacy and color temperature. The small size of halogen lamps permits their use in compact optical systems for projectors and illumination. The small glass envelope may be enclosed in a much larger outer glass bulb, which has a lower temperature, protects the inner bulb from contamination, and makes the bulb mechanically more similar to a conventional lamp.
Artificial lighting technology began to be developed tens of thousands of years ago and continues to be refined in the present day.
An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc.
Henry Woodward was a Canadian inventor and a major pioneer in the development of the incandescent lamp. He was born in 1832.
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for developing and supplying the first incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1881.
Heinrich Göbel, or Henry Goebel was a German-born American precision mechanic and inventor. In 1848 he immigrated to New York City, where he resided until his death. He received American citizenship in 1865.
Lewis Howard Latimer was an American inventor and patent draftsman. His inventions included an evaporative air conditioner, an improved process for manufacturing carbon filaments for light bulbs, and an improved toilet system for railroad cars. In 1884, he joined the Edison Electric Light Company where he worked as a draftsman. The Lewis H. Latimer House, his landmarked former residence, is located near the Latimer Projects at 34-41 137th Street in Flushing, Queens, New York City.
Daniel McFarlan Moore was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed a novel light source, the "Moore lamp", and a business that produced them in the early 1900s. The Moore lamp was the first commercially viable light-source based on gas discharges instead of incandescence; it was the predecessor to contemporary neon lighting and fluorescent lighting. In his later career Moore developed a miniature neon lamp that was extensively used in electronic displays, as well as vacuum tubes that were used in early television systems.
Tungsram was a manufacturing company located in Hungary and known for their light bulbs and electronics. Established in Újpest in 1896, it initially produced telephones, wires and switchboards. The name "Tungsram" is a portmanteau of tungsten and wolfram, the two common names of the metal used for making light bulb filaments. Before becoming nationalized by the Communist government in 1945, the company was the world's third largest manufacturer of light bulbs and radiotubes, after the American General Electric and RCA companies.
Mazda was a trademarked name registered by General Electric (GE) in 1909 for incandescent light bulbs. The name was used from 1909 to 1945 in the United States by GE and Westinghouse. Mazda brand light bulbs were made for decades after 1945 outside the US. The company chose the name due to its association with Ahura Mazda, the transcendental and universal God of Zoroastrianism, whose name means light of wisdom in the Avestan language.
A bayonet mount or bayonet connector is a fastening mechanism consisting of a cylindrical male side with one or more radial pins, and a female receptor with matching L-shaped slot(s) and with spring(s) to keep the two parts locked together. The slots are shaped like a capital letter L with serif ; the pin slides into the vertical arm of the L, rotates across the horizontal arm, then is pushed slightly upwards into the short vertical "serif" by the spring; the connector is no longer free to rotate unless pushed down against the spring until the pin is out of the "serif".
John White Howell was an American electrical engineer who spent his entire professional career working for Thomas Edison, specializing in the development and manufacturing of the incandescent lamp.
William Joseph Hammer was an American pioneer electrical engineer, aviator, and president of the Edison Pioneers.
The Edison and Swan Electric Light Company Limited was a manufacturer of incandescent lamp bulbs and other electrical goods. It was formed in 1883 with the name Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company with the merger of the Swan United Electric Company and the Edison Electric Light Company.
Edison light bulbs, also known as filament light bulbs and retroactively referred to as antique light bulbs or vintage light bulbs, are either carbon- or early tungsten-filament incandescent light bulbs, or modern bulbs that reproduce their appearance. Most of the bulbs in circulation are reproductions of the wound filament bulbs made popular by Edison Electric Light Company at the turn of the 20th century. They are easily identified by the long and complicated windings of their internal filaments, and by the very warm-yellow glow of the light they produce.
Adolphe Alexandre Chaillet was a French inventor in the field of electrical engineering.
The Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York was a lighting and electrical distribution company organized in 1878. The company held the patents for the first practical incandescent electric lamp and electrical distribution system of incandescent electric lighting. They also held a patent for an electric meter to measure the amount of electricity used. The inventions were those of Albon Man and William E. Sawyer. They gave the patent rights to the company, which they had formed with a group of businessmen. It was the first company in the world formally established to provided electric lighting and was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs.
Agnes Geraldine Grove born Agnes Geraldine Lane Fox also Agnes Geraldine Fox-Pitt; Lady Grove was an English aristocrat, diarist and essayist. She wrote to support women's suffrage, anti-vivisection and anti-vaccination.