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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Joseph Swan
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(1828–1914, kt 1904) Inventor of several improvements in photographic processes (he patented bromide paper in 1879), but known above all as a pioneer of electric lighting. There had been several unsuccessful experiments by others in which filaments were heated in a vacuum, but Swan was the first to demonstrate a practical source of electric light (to the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Chemical Society in 1878), using an incandescent carbon filament. Shortly afterwards Thomas Edison developed a similar lamp in the USA. This led to litigation over priority, but in 1883 the two merged their efforts in a single company.
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