What invention was made by Joseph Wilson Swan?
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (31 October 1828 - 27 May 1914) was a
British physicist and chemist, most famous for the invention of the
incandescent light bulb for which he received the first patent in
1878. His house (in Gateshead, England) was the first in the world
to be lit by a lightbulb, and the world's first electric-light
illumination in a public building was for a lecture by Swan in
1880. In 1881, the Savoy Theatre in the City of Westminster, London
was lit by Swan incandescent lightbulbs, which was the first
theatre, and the first public building in the world, to be lit
entirely by electricity.[1]
In 1904, Swan was knighted by King Edward VII, awarded the Royal
Society's Hughes Medal, and was made an honorary member of
thePharmaceutical Society. He had already received the highest
decoration in France, the Légion d'honneur, when he visited an
international exhibition in Paris in 1881. The exhibition included
exhibits of his inventions, and the city was lit with electric
light, thanks to Swan's invention.