EDISON IN ENGLAND

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 107, 28 December 1931, Page 2

EDISON IN ENGLAND

INVENTOR HAD GREAT REGARD FOR BRITISH PEOPLE ■/ "HONEST AND DEPENDABLE" When Mr. Edison just before the , War returned from his' last EuroI pean journey he described to me his , delight on revisiting England, writes ( Edward Marshall in the London "Observer." He recalled episodes of his ! earlier days when working in London upon the telephone. "The English are an honest people," he declared, "solidly intelligent, quietly j enterprising, and dependable. I j learned that when I first went'' to J London, in 1873, ^r the trial of my { automatic telegraph by the British , Post OfRee." | He was aceompanied by a small ; bag of clothing and many large : cases of instruments and, he did not I discover for a full week that he had' lost his clothing, for he worked night and day at the telegraph headj auarters, while his assistant was at Liverpool, the conditions of snccess j requiring a sending and reception rate of a thousand words a minute.. "I soon realised that my available equipment meant failure," Edison told me. "I had been eating roast beef. I needed pastry. I found a shop in High Holborn and . obtained a large supply. Then I searched for and discovered a battery hetter than that offered by the post office, and managed to install it in two hours before the time appointed for the test. The trial su.cceeded. I never would have found that battery upon roast beef."

"Very Honest Men" Then the British Post Office asked him to speed up submarine cables. The experiments were made with spares coiled in tubs. The. results were had. He was nearly discouraged. "I.lost all my conceit," he said. "But I soon found that Englishmen knew what I did not, that a cable coiled in tubs was more difficult than straight, owing to induction. My speed was finally acceptable, but they did not tell me. They are great jokers, Englishmen; but they were splendid later." His second and third Jumbo dynamos for electric lighting were installed in London, in 1881, at Holborn Yiaduct Station, and hegan operation in mid-January, 1882. He often lovingly recalled these F-p.glish experiences to friends. "Very honest men," he ealled them always. On his last European journey he refused to go to Be.rlin, which Kaiser Wilhelm wished to illuminate in his honour. "I should have been thinking how he had evaded paying royalties. Englishmen pay then* debts. I was glad to go to London."

National Mourning His best friend, Henry Ford, with tears streamiug down his cheeks after his death, announced that Edison knew during his last conscious days of the success of his long-pur-sued experiments for creating rubber from an indigenous annual plant, "•mancipating motorists from the tropical product and reducing costs. His funeral touchingly coineided with the 52nd anniversary of the perf^ction of his incandescent electric light. Thc nation mourns Edison as it has mourned none since Lincoln. Among those whose privilege it was personally to know and love him the eense of loss is everwhelming. While his body lay in state in the room in which through many years he had vo-ked, 10,000 people passed daily for a farewell look. His simple grave in a small nearby cemetery will be a national shrine and perhaps later will be p""ovided v/ith an impressive monument, though he would have wNhed otherwise. It is a comfort to those who truly 1 o ve.d him that he had changed his views on the immortality of the soul. It was my great privilege to make ihis announcement, as years previously I had written an interview pronouncing ^is complete lack of conviction. Bath statements, coming from the great scientist, tremendously impressed the whole world.