Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson

Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson (1828-1914), inventor, b. Sunderland, Durham, England.

In Joseph Swan's time, the camera was something new and he carried out many experiments in photography.

He invented a new way of printing photographs (1864), a new kind of plate for use in a camera (1871), a new kind of paper for printing photographs on (1879), and he was the first person to make artificial silk.

From 1860, he tried to produce an electric lamp and he succeeded in the winter of 1878-79, ten months before Thomas Edison in the United States.

Swan's first successful lamp can be seen today in the Science Museum, London.

In 1882, Edison and Swan formed The Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company Ltd. to make electric lamps in Britain.

See Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, F.R.S. A Memoir, by Mary E. Swan and Kenneth R. Swan ~ Mary E. Swan