St. George Lane Fox Pitt

I have known Tony for so long, that I can’t actually remember when we first met! I do, however, remember very clearly working with him on a project for St Paul’s church in Woodhouse Eaves, which involved delving into the buildings of one William Railton, architect of Nelson’s Column in London, and numerous buildings in our own area. Since then, we have been in practically constant contact, either in person, or on email and social media. And, Tony has written a guest post for the blog before, way back in 2020!

In his guest post, Tony shares with us a bit of the history of lighting; what we know today as The Brush, and specifically about the pioneer, St. George Lane Fox Pitt.

St. George Lane Fox Pitt (1856-1932)

Tony Jarram 

In 1879 the year that Thomas Edison was credited with the invention of the incandescent electric light bulb, the pioneer company of the Anglo American Brush Electric Light Corporation was established in London. This company was, ten years later, to amalgamate with The Falcon Engine and Car Works Limited in Loughborough, to form The Brush Electrical Engineering Company.

Part of the Brush factory, taken from Loughborough railway station, 2013

Charles Francis Brush

Anglo American Brush Electric Light Company produced equipment to the designs of the American inventor Charles Francis Brush. Among its products were arc lamps that, even with ingenious devices for doubling their illumination time, had a short service life before their carbon rods needed to be replaced. Arc lamps had been in use mainly in the USA since 1835.

Incandescent lamps with a filament, in a vacuum and contained in a glass bulb offered far longer life without adjustment or maintenance and were more suitable for indoor use. They were the precursors to the lightbulbs we use today. They could not however flood an area with light to the intensity of the arc lights. The ideal situation was for both incandescent and arc lamps to be used in the required installation.

Here it should be stated that Thomas Edison was not the inventor of what is now generally known as the light bulb. Like all great inventions the light bulb cannot be accredited to a single inventor, with parallel work by a number of scientists around the World. It is said there were 22 different lightbulbs before Edison. The earliest record I can find of work in this field occurred some 40 years earlier by the British chemist Warren de la Rue. Edison, however, focused on the improvement of the filament and produced a carbonised filament of un-coated cotton. Mention should be made of the US patents by William Sawyer and Albon Man and in the UK by Joseph Swan.

The Anglo American Brush Electric Light Corporation needed incandescent lamps to market alongside its arc lamps, dynamos and other electrical equipment. Here they turned to another pioneer St. George Lane Fox (also known as Pitt). [1]

St. George Lane Fox-Pitt

Lane Fox had been born in Malta in 1856 and in 1877 had invented an electric device for lighting public gas lights. In 1878 he invented a system of electric lighting using small incandescent lamps in parallel. He took out a patent for this work and was one of the first to do so. His lamps contained a platinum-iridium element.

Also in 1878 he wrote a letter to The Times making a case for public electricity supply.

In 1879 The Anglo American Brush Electric Light Corporation acquired the patent rights to produce the Lane Fox lamps. The following year he experimented with elements made from charred plant fibres.

In 1881 Lane Fox exhibited at the Paris exhibition alongside Thomas Edison, Joseph Swan, and Hiram Maxim (later to invent the Maxim gun). It was said that the Lane Fox lamps were slightly less efficient than the Edison and Swan lamps.

In the same year, the Electrical Exhibition at Crystal Palace had its north end illuminated with Brush arc lamps and Lane Fox incandescent lamps with all his rivals exhibiting elsewhere in the building.

Brush must have been more than satisfied with the Lane Fox product as a department was set up in Portpool Lane, London, to manufacture the incandescent lamps with Lane Fox in charge. He procured his glass bulbs from a Mr Long a glass blower of 12 Kirby Street in London.

In 1891, two years after the amalgamation of Brush and Falcon at Loughborough Lane Fox bought back his patent but the World had moved on and he was never to be a major supplier.

In 1889, the Brush company in the USA merged with competitor Thompson-Houston Electric Company. Only two years later, in 1891, the newly formed company merged again, this time with the Edison General Electric Company, to form the General Electric Company.

Edison’s English company merged with Joseph Swan’s Company to form Ediswan.

Brush in the UK as Brush Electrical Engineering Co. Ltd. found that incandescent lamps were not a lucrative part of their business.

It is certain, however, that the Lane Fox lamp enhanced the Brush portfolio and that without them Brush would never have been able to carry out its pioneering lighting schemes.

Lane Fox died at South Eaton Place, London on 6th April 1932.

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NOTES

[1] St. George Lane Fox-Pitt was the second son of General Pitt-Rivers (Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers), who left his anthropological and ethnographic collection to Oxford University, who built the Pitt-Rivers Museum in which to house it.

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About Tony 

Tony was born in Loughborough in the late 1940s, and is a regular on the local history speaker circuit with subjects including “The Day Buffalo Bill came to Town”, “Lacemakers and Luddites” and “The architect “William Railton.” He was one of the founder members of The Friends of Charnwood Museum and served on the committee for the first 10 years. Tony was one of the two local historians who were asked to research the history of the Brush Electrical Engineering Company for its centenary in 1979 and the previous year wrote the book “Brush Aircraft – Production at Loughborough”.

Other published work includes the co-written “The Lacemakers’ Story” for the Friends of Charnwood Museum, and also the “Luddite Trail”. Recent work has included research, initially for St Paul’s church Woodhouse Eaves, on the work of the architect William Railton.

Tony has undertaken research for authors and museums in both the UK and USA on a variety of subjects including aviation, tramcars, early steam locomotives and naval history. Tony was given an Honorary Membership of Loughborough Library Local Studies and is a campaigner to recognise Loughborough’s heritage. He is also a keen amateur artist and between local history and transport studies enjoys visiting art galleries.

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Find out about the Brush connection with the Festival of Britain in 1951!

Brush were one of the very successful companies in Loughborough in the 1930s.

Find out about one of the places where some of the Brush apprentices might have stayed!

Brush produced the Avro 504C anti-Zeppelin aircraft - find out a bit more about the raids on a guest blog post.

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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