Details

2-page manuscript letter to Edward Gimingham from Charles Faraday Proctor on headed paper of the Compagnie Generale des Lamps Incandescents, Brevets Edison & Swan, Rue de l'Orme, Ivry-sur-Seine. Proctor gives details of an order he has received, mentions that he is sending some lamps to Edward to test, asks for supplies of certain chemicals, and discusses performance of various bulbs. [Note: Charles Faraday Proctor (1861-1940) was a great-nephew of Michael Faraday. He served an apprenticeship of four years in the various departments of the works of Henry Watson and Sons, and then spent a further year in the laboratories of the late Sir Joseph Swan. In 1881 he was sent to Paris to assist in the setting up of the first factory in France to be specially designed for the production of incandescent electric lamps, and was appointed assistant manager for the Swan Company. Four years later he went to Lille as assistant manager of the Swan Factory, and he returned to Paris in 1888 to design and equip the large new lamp works of the Swan Company in Paris. The following year he was awarded the Medal of the Paris International Exhibition for Lamp Making. In 1891 he devised and patented a method of constructing incandescent electric lamps in which the filament is first mounted on a flanged tube of glass, thereby enabling it to be sealed into the bulb by machinery, instead of being assembled by hand. Mr. Proctor was appointed the manager of the Edison and Swan Company's Works at Ponder's End in 1893, and in the years which followed he took out many patents for improved lamp fittings, including the present design of bayonet lamp holder.]