SIR JOSEPH WILSON SWAN.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14980, 29 May 1914, Page 8

SIR JOSEPH WILSON SWAN.

(By Cable.—Proas Association.— Copyright.)

LONDON, May 27. Tho death has occurred of Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, the well-known scientist and inventor.

Sir Joseph Swan was the inventor of the incandescent ' electric lamp, tho "carbon process" in ii photography (which, patented in 1864, was the first commercially practicable process for making a permanent print), and the rapid photographic dry plate. He was born in 1828. Ono of tho first problems ho tried to solve was the production of an incandescent electric light. By 1878 Mr Swan, and a co-helper, Mr C. H. Steam, after numberless experiments established the result that when a wellformed carbon filament is firmly connected with conducting wires, and placed in a hermetically sealed glass ball, perfectly exhausted, tho filament suffers no apparent change, even when heated to an extreme degree of whiteness. A lamp embodying this new mode was exhibited by Mr Swan at a lect/ro in Newcastle in 1379. In November, 1880, Swan read a paper before the Society of Telegraph Engineers, Mr (afteri wards Sir William) Preeco in the chair, !on tho "Sub-Division of the Electric Light." At tho meeting there wore shown to a delighted audience, among whom was Professor John Tyndall, vacuum lamps bearing a fine carbon wire in a state of brilliant incandescence. Mr Preeco said: "We havo passed through the various stages of electric lighting, from the first flickering, whizzing, noisy, erratic, and troublesome lamp till we havo this beautiful, steady light which is now before vs —one of Mr Swan's latest achievements." Sir Jeseph Swan's work in photography was revolutionary, for his experiments produced tho highly sensitive plate. In 1881 ho was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The Royal Society elected him a Fellow in 1894; ho was president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1898-9, and of tho Society of Chemical Industry for 1900 and 1901. Knighted in 1904, on the occasion of the birthday of King Edward VII., in tho same year Sir Joseph was awarded the Royal Society's "Hughes" gold medal for his invention of the electric incandescent lamp, and other contributions to the practical applications of electricity.