Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was born in Pallion Hall in 1828. His father was the manager of the estate’s limestone quarry. He became a physicist and chemist whose works have had an incredible impact on not only the lives of the Victorians but also on ours today.
He became an apprentice to Hudson and Osbaldiston’s pharmacy in Sunderland before joining the firm of John Mawson in Newcastle later becoming a partner in the firm of manufacturing chemists. Swan’s great contribution to civilisation was the invention of the first practical incandescent electric light bulb that he was able to demonstrate for the first time in Newcastle in 1878. However, this was not his only achievement. He also invented the dry photographic plate, an important improvement in photography and a step in the development of modern photographic film, as well as an early synthetic fibre manufacturing process.
He was knighted in 1904 and died in 1914.
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was born in Pallion Hall in 1828. His father was the manager of the estate’s limestone quarry. He became a physicist and chemist whose works have had an incredible impact on not only the lives of the Victorians but also on ours today.
He became an apprentice to Hudson and Osbaldiston’s pharmacy in Sunderland before joining the firm of John Mawson in Newcastle later becoming a partner in the firm of manufacturing chemists. Swan’s great contribution to civilisation was the invention of the first practical incandescent electric light bulb that he was able to demonstrate for the first time in Newcastle in 1878. However, this was not his only achievement. He also invented the dry photographic plate, an important improvement in photography and a step in the development of modern photographic film, as well as an early synthetic fibre manufacturing process.
He was knighted in 1904 and died in 1914.