The Luminous Electric Flux at the Beginning of the Tunnel (1849)

JF Ptak Science Books  

Oil lamps and candles are ancient, with candles being the junior in age at about 5000 years old compared to oil's 6500 or thereabouts. So the introduction of an artificial source of light that was not based on these technologies and which took, basically, thousands of years to come to was an extraordinary occurrence.

Humphrey Davy introduced the idea of the carbon arc electric light in the first decade of the 19^th century. His light was successful if not practicable, as the electric source was a battery made of a series of a thousand or two liquid cells, though there was a much more practical public display of the idea in the 'teens. The subject of this short post, William Staite¹, enters the electric light arena in the 1840's with no real scientific background and proceeded to make some impressive improvements, proving himself a thinker with the ability to design and construct the precision elements.

Like all the others at this time he achieved very limited success given the problem of the electric power source—that would not be solved for another couple of decades with electric generators.

Anyway I'm stopping by here to share the fine and beautiful drawings from Staite's patent. Basically the light was produced in the gap between the electrodes (between N and M in the first figure) right there in the open air (as well as the ends of the electrodes/carbon rods that became heated and glowed, though this light source was minor). This actually looks a lot like some of the arc lighting used presently in projectors and searchlights and such, though with far more efficiency and lumens—also the arc is passing through a gas, like xenon, under high pressure to produce “sun-like” light.

Staite tried to monetize his idea but with little success, and was dead by 1854...and seems to have passed into obscurity. His name is seldom mentioned, it seems, in any of the popular timelines/chronologies/histories that I've pecked around with online. But he was certainly there and made valuable contributions to that technology, though the effort would soon switch in the 1870's to the incandescent bulb, and by 1880 Edison would introduce a successful little number who filament would burn for 1500 hours, and then the race was on.

 

Notes:

1. (William E. Staite), “Specification of Staite's Patent Electric Light, [Patent dated July 13, 1847—specifications enrolled July 13, 1848.]” in the “Specification of English Patents sections, in Journal of the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, devoted to the Mechanical Arts, Manufactures, General Science, and the Recording of American and other Patented Inventions, printed in Philadelphia at the Franklin, 1849; volume 17, third series, whole no. 47, pp 263-268, with 8 small woodcut figures of the apparatus.

“W.E. Staite (1809-54) and W. Petrie (1821-1904) were pioneers of electric lighting who received little recognition for their work. Although a satisfactory self-regulating arc lamp was developed, commercial success was not achieved owing to their reliance on primary batteries as the only source of power. Numerous demonstrations were given throughout England, and serious interest in their system of electric lighting was shown by railway companies and dock authorities. The death of Staite in 1854 brought to an end these early attempts to use electricity for illumination.” And: “The pioneers...were finally defeated by the limitations and the expense of the primary cells which were their only source of electrical energy. --“Staite and Petrie: pioneers of electric lighting”, G. Woodward, in IEE Proceedings A - Physical Science, Measurement and Instrumentation, Volume: 136 , Issue: 6 , Nov. 1989.