Joseph Swan's Electrical Workshop, 1881


Swan's Electrical Workshop in Newcastle 1881. Joseph Wilson Swan (October 31, 1828 - May 27, 1914) was an English physicist and chemist. He is most famous for his role in the development of the first incandescent light bulb. Swan first demonstrated the light bulb at a lecture in 1878, but did not receive a patent until 1880 (patent No. 4933) after improvement to the original lamp. His house (in Gateshead) was the first in the world to be lit by lightbulb, and the world's first electric-light illumination in a public building was for a lecture Swan gave in 1880. In 1881, the Savoy Theatre in London, was lit by Swan incandescent lightbulbs, the first theatre and the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. In 1894 Swan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1901 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Science () from the University of Durham. In 1904 he was knighted and made an honorary member of the Pharmaceutical Society. Swan died in 1914 at the age of 85.


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