Details
- TitleLetter from Samuel Flood Page to Edward Gimingham, 27 October 1892
- ReferenceUK0108 SC MSS 285/01/42
- Date27 October 1892
- Scope and Content1-page typescript letter from Samuel Flood Page, with 1-page enclosure, to Edward Gimingham about Edward's patent and improvements to the design of miner's lamps. The letter says; "I have been reading through the draft specification which Mr Imray has prepared in connection with your improvements in Miner's lamps, and I send you a copy of a letter which I have written to him today [letter enclosed]. Mr Swan is so loyal to the Company, so anxious about his Miner's lamp, has never lost faith in its being made a good one, and your own improvements are so absolutely based on Mr Swan's lamp, that I think it is due to him that we should recognise that in your new patent unless Mr Imray thinks it would weaken our position. For my own part, in what may be my ignorance, I think it would strengthen us. Manifestly we can differentiate your patent from Mr Swan's, but we must recognise and feel that the foundation of your specification is Mr swan's excellent work. Yours very truely, S Flood Page." The copy-letter enclosure from Flood Page to Messers Abel & Imray, 28 Southampton Buildings, WC, dated 27 October 1892 says; "Dear Sirs, I thank you for your letter of yesterday's date in which you enclose a draft of the Provisional Specification of E A Gimingham, 'improvements in portable safety lamps'. I do not think that the patent as it stands is quite fair to Mr J W Swan, whose patent no.1999 of 1886 forms the foundation of Mr Gimingham's specification. This company owns Mr Swan's patent for miners lamps and we have made a very large number of lamps according to that patent; as they have not proved quite successful in practice, Mr Gimingham was asked to take the matter in hand and endeavour to make an improvement on Mr Swan's patent. Undoubtedly he has made such changes that Mr Swan's patent would not apply to our present state of circumstances; nevertheless Mr Swan's patent stands in Mr Gimingham's way and might render Mr Gimingham's specification very precarious if tried in a Court of Law. Would it not be fairer to Mr Swan, would it not strengthen the position of this company, if we were to base the present specification expressly on Mr Swan's patent, taking this as an improvement on Mr Swan's patent but still referring to that patent as the foundation of the present specification? Of course if you say that we shall be in a stronger position by leaving Mr Gimingham's patent to stand by itself, without any reference to our prevous patent (J W Swan no.1999 of 1886), I shall say no more; but the Edison improvements on the Edison Key Patent seem to point otherwise. I am, dear sir, yours faithfully S Flood Page."
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