Made by the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). Edison's lamp had a single loop of carbon which glowed when a current flowed through it. The glass bulb contained a partial vacuum; there was so little oxygen in the bulb that the filament could get very hot without catching fire. Advances in filament design, vacuum technique and glass-blowing led to the rapid refinement of the lamps and ultimately to the ubiquity of electric lighting. Edison himself supervised the installation of the world's first permanent, commercial, central power system in New York, which became operative in September 1882, to power electric light. This lamp was presented to the Science Museum by Edison.

Inv.1880-70