Sir Joseph (Wilson) Swan - Early life, Electric light, Edison collaboration, Photography

Physicist and chemist, born in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, NE England, UK. He became a manufacturing chemist, patented the carbon process for photographic printing in 1864, and invented the dry plate (1871) and bromide paper (1879). In 1860 he invented an electric lamp which anticipated Edison's by 20 years, and in 1879 demonstrated a lamp which considerably improved on Edison's patent model. He was the first to produce practicable artificial silk.

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (October 31, 1828 - May 27, 1914) was an English physicist and chemist, most famous for the development of the light bulb.

Early life

Swan was born on October 31, 1828, at Pallion Hall in Bishopwearmouth (now Sunderland), and he served an apprenticeship with a pharmacist there.

Electric light

In 1850 he began working on a light bulb using carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb.

Fifteen years later, in 1875, Swan returned to consider the problem of the light bulb with the aid of a better vacuum and a carbonized thread as a filament. The most significant feature of Swan's lamp was that there was little residual oxygen in the vacuum tube to ignite the filament, thus allowing the filament to glow almost white-hot without catching fire.

Edison collaboration

Swan received a British patent for his device in 1878, about a year before Thomas Edison. Swan had reported success to the Newcastle Chemical Society and at a lecture in Newcastle in February 1879 he demonstrated a working lamp. In 1881 he had started his own company, The Swan Electric Light Company, and started commercial production. Swan United Electric Light Company was established. Known commonly as "Ediswan" the company sold lamps made with a cellulose filament that Swan had invented in 1881.

Photography

When working with wet photographic plates, he noticed that heat increased the sensitivity of the silver bromide emulsion.

Three years later, while searching for a better carbon filament for his light bulb, Swan patented a process for squeezing nitro-cellulose through holes to form fibres.

Swan was knighted in 1904.