约瑟夫·斯万1828—1914

1860年，约瑟夫·斯万发明了白炽灯的原型——半真空碳丝电灯，由于当时真空技术的限制，导致电灯寿命不够长。1875年，斯万改进了他的发明。1878年，斯万早于爱迪生一年获得白炽灯专利权。由于专利方面的争议，1883年，约瑟夫·斯万与托马斯·爱迪生一起成立了Ediswan电灯公司。1894年，约瑟夫·斯万成为英国皇家学会会员。

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is responsible for developing the first use of incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1881.

In 1904, Swan was knighted by King Edward VII, awarded the Royal Society's Hughes Medal, and was made a member of the Pharmaceutical Society. He had received the highest decoration in France, the Legion of Honour, when he visited the 1881 International Exposition of Electricity, Paris. The exhibition included displays of his inventions, and the city was lit with his electric lighting.

Biography

Early life

Joseph Wilson Swan was born in 1828 at Pallion Hall in Pallion, in the Parish of Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, County Durham. His parents were John Swan and Isabella Cameron.

Swan was apprenticed for six years to a Sunderland firm of pharmacists/druggists, Hudson and Osbaldiston. However, it is not known whether Swan completed his six-year apprenticeship, as both partners subsequently died. He was said to have had an enquiring mind, even as a child. He augmented his education with a fascination for his surroundings, the industry of the area, and reading at Sunderland Library. He attended lectures at the Sunderland Atheneum.

Swan subsequently joined Mawson's, a firm of manufacturing chemists in Newcastle upon Tyne, started in the year of Swan's birth by John Mawson (9 September 1819 – 17 December 1867), the husband of his sister, Elizabeth Swan (22 November 1822 – 2 August 1905). In 1846, Swan was offered a partnership at Mawson's. This company subsequently existed as Mawson, Swan, and Morgan until 1973 (the store closed in 1986), formerly located on Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne, near Grey's Monument. The premises, now occupied by fashion retailer END., can be identified by a line of Victorian-style electric street lamps in front of the store on Grey Street.

Swan lived at Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead, a large house on Kells Lane North, where he conducted most of his experiments in the large conservatory. The house was later converted into Beaconsfield School, a private fee-paying grant-aided co-educational grammar school. Students there could still find examples of Swan's original electrical fittings.

Electric light

In 1850, Swan began working on a light bulb using carbonised paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. By 1860, he was able to demonstrate a working device, but the lack of a good vacuum, and of an adequate electric source, resulted in an inefficient light bulb with a short life. In August 1863 he presented his own design for a vacuum pump to a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The design used mercury falling through a tube to trap air from the system to be evacuated. Swan's design was similar in construction to the Sprengel pump and predates Herman Sprengel's research by two years. Furthermore, it is notable that Sprengel conducted his research while visiting London, and was probably aware of the annual reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Nonetheless, Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison are later reported to have used the Sprengel pump to evacuate their carbon filament lamps.

In 1875, Swan returned to consider the problem of the light bulb with the aid of a better vacuum and a carbonised thread as a filament. The most significant feature of Swan's improved 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. However, his filament had low resistance, thus needing heavy copper wires to supply it.

Swan first publicly demonstrated his incandescent carbon lamp at a lecture for the Newcastle upon Tyne Chemical Society on 18 December 1878.

Legacy

Swan died in 1914 at his home in Overhill, Warlingham, Surrey. The funeral took place at All Saints' Church, Warlingham, on 30 May 1914, with interment taking place in the churchyard. Mourners included representatives of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and the Royal Society.

In 1924, Frances Isobel gifted a bronze statue she created of her late father to The Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle in Newcastle upon Tyne.

In 1945, the London Power Company commemorated Swan by naming a new 1,554 GRT coastal collier SS Sir Joseph Swan.