Elihu Thomson - Biography

Electrical engineer and inventor, born in Manchester, Greater Manchester, NW England, UK. He emigrated to the USA with his family at age five, and attended Philadelphia schools. With the support of Edwin J Houston (1847–1914), a teacher at a Philadelphia high school where Thomson also taught (1870–6), he began experimenting with electricity. Together they invented an arc street-lighting system (patented 1881) and established a company to manufacture this and other innovations. Thomson stayed on as a consultant when in 1892 the firm merged with the Edison General Electric Co to become General Electric Co. In 1894 he became a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was acting president at MIT (1920–2). In a long and industrious life he patented some 700 inventions and designs. He was the inventor of electric welding and a centrifugal cream separator, among many other devices, and he helped to develop stereoscopic x-ray pictures.

Elihu Thomson (March 29, 1853 – March 13, 1937) was an engineer and inventor who was instrumental in the founding of major electrical companies in the United States, Britain and France.

Biography

He was born in Manchester (England) on 29 March 1853, but his family moved to Philadelphia in 1858. Houston, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company. In 1892 this merged with the Edison General Electric Company to become the General Electric Company. Thomson's name is further commemorated by the British Thomson-Houston Company (BTH), and the French companies Thomson and Alstom. His early companies are also involved in the history of The General Electric Company Limited (GEC) in Britain and the Compagnie Générale d'Electricité in France. He was the first recipient of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers AIEE (now Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)) Edison Medal, bestowed upon him in 1909 "For meritorious achievement in electrical science, engineering and arts as exemplified in his contributions thereto during the past thirty years."