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A Brief History Of Lighting

1831 - Michael Faraday invents the induction ring coil and Faraday’s law of induction.

1835 - James Bowman Lindsay demonstrated constant electric lighting system using a prototype light bulb.

1850 - Edward Shepard invented an electrical incandescent arc lamp using a charcoal filament. Joseph Swan started working with carbonised paper filaments the same year.

1854 - Heinrich Glöbel, a German watchmaker, invented the first true light bulb. He used a carbonised bamboo filament placed inside a glass bulb.

1875 - Hermann Sprengel invented the mercury vacuum pump making it possible to develop a practical electric light bulb. Making a really good vacuum inside the bulb possible.

1875 - Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans patented a light bulb.

1878 - Sir Joseph Swan was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electric light bulb (13.5 hours). Swan used a carbon fibre filament derived from cotton.

1879 - Thomas Edison invented a carbon filament that burned for 40 hours. Edison placed his filament in an oxygen-less bulb. (Edison evolved his designs for the light bulb based on the 1875 patent he purchased from inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans.)

1880 - Edison continued to improve his light bulb until it could last for over 1200 hours using a bamboo-derived filament.

1903 - Willis Whitney invented a filament that would not make the inside of a light bulb turn dark. It was a metal-coated carbon filament (a predecessor to the tungsten filament).

1906 - The General Electric Company were the first to patent a method of making tungsten filaments for use in incandescent light bulbs. The filaments were costly.

1910 - William David Coolidge invented an improved method of making. The tungsten filament outlasted all other types of filaments and Coolidge made the costs practical.

1925 - The first frosted light bulbs were produced.

1991 - Philips invented a light bulb that lasts 60,000 hours. The bulb uses magnetic induction.