Growth and origin of the Thomson-Houston Company

Origin and Growth of the Thomson-Houston

Company.

The following from Modern Light and Heat, illustrative of the origin and growth of the Thomson-Houston Electric company, is interesting as an illustration of the rapid advance of electric lighting in general and the demands which this great industry is making upon our largest manufacturing concerns:

In the year 1874, while teaching at the Central high school of Philadelphia, the attention of Professors Elihu Thomson and Edwin J. Houston was directed to the construction of apparatus for electric lighting. Beginning then, in connection with their teaching and laboratory work, they continued for some time the development of various forms and designs of dynamos and lamps; and it is interesting to know that by 1876 Professor Thomson had built a machine, the mechanical work on which he performed personally, which would operate an arc light in a very satisfactory manner. This machine had the three-coil armature and many of the component parts of the present Thomson-Houston dynamo. The equipments were extended, the professors laboring to apply theory to practice, and much new apparatus was constructed; the next machine being one designed to run four lamps for a bakery in Philadelphia. This dynamo, on being tested, proved to be capable of operating twice the number of lamps it was made for. The performance of the machine attracted the notice of George S. Garrett, a citizen of Philadelphia, who, after thoroughly investigating the system, made arrangements with Messrs. Thomson and Houston to manufacture and handle the apparatus of their invention. Accordingly the negotiations were completed, and during the years 1878 and 1879 several similar machines were manufactured and sold.

The call for goods soon became so pressing that Mr: Garrett found himself financially unable to carry on the manufacure on such a plan as would enable orders to be filled with promptness, and sold a portion of his rights to a company which was organized in New Britain, Conn., to manufacture the goods of the Thomson-Houston system, and control all territory outside of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland; that being held by Mr. Garrett for goods of his own manufacture.

Professor Thomson now gave up his chair at the Central high school, and moved to New Britain, and devoted himself entirely to the development of the apparatus and details for a complete and successful system of electric lighting.

The facilities there were not very great, the production being limited to about three dynamos and some fifty lamps per week. The work of the years 1880 and 1881 was not so great as had been anticipated, mainly because the management did not seem to realize the vast importance of the system they were handling nor the breadth of the field before them. In 1882 Messrs. S. A. Barton, C. A. Coffin, and other citizens of Lynn, Mass., succeeded in purchasing a controlling interest in the stock of the company, upon obtaining which they proceeded to make arrangements for radical changes in the company. The name of The Thomson-Houston Electric company was adopted, and the manufacturing was removed to Lynn, where a new factory, a hundred and four by a hundred and twenty feet, with three stories and basement, was being erected; the old plant in New Britain being operated until about the end of the year 1883, when the removal took place, most of the men employed by the company coming to Lynn.

The business at once began to assume larger proportions. Owing to recent improvements, and to the push and enterprise of the new management, the growth and extension of the company's interests became phenomenal. During the first fifteen months, under the new management, there were established thirty-one local lighting companies, operating over twenty-five hundred lights.

In 1885 the Thomson-Houston company began to develop the incandescent system under the fundamental lamp patents of Messrs. Sawyer and Man; and in connection with this, Professor Thomson extended his experiments with the incandescent dynamo. His invention of the inclined series coil is considered one of the most ingenious arrangements of series field winding known. This form differs from the well known compound winding in that the coil traversed by the main current is inclined from a perpendicular in a direction opposite to that of the rotation of the armature, and by its influence the neutral points is kept constant under great variation of load.

The development of the arc lamp was also progressing. A pupil of Professor Thomson at the Philadelphia High School, who had shown great talent in electrical matters, had been placed in charge of the factory. This was the present superintendent, E. W. Rice, jr., who, in company with Professor Thomson, had greatly modified the form and mechanism of the lamp.

All these improvements brought business, and it was soon found that even their new factory, with its two hundred horse-power engine capacity and five hundred hands, was not sufficient for the manufacture of the apparatus needed, and continuous running was resorted to. This did very well for a while; but again the need of more room was felt, and in 1887 ground was broken for another and still larger factory, which, with a large storehouse, has just been completed.

On Oct. 3, 1887, the combination of the interests of the Thomson-Houston and Westinghouse companies was made public. This was brought about by the recognition by the Thomson-Houston company of the Gaulard and Gibbs patent on transforming and .converting devices in connection with the alternating current system, and by the Westinghouse company of the Thomson-Houston patents covering its system of arc lighting, and the Saywer-Man patents on the manufacture of incandescent lamps. Mutual concessions were made, and the alternating business was divided, — the Thomson-Houston company controlling New England and some two hundred cities outside, and the Westinghouse company the remainder of the United States, arranging, when combination plants were installed, to use the Thomson-Houston arc system, and being licensed to manufacture incandescent lamps. This combination, assuring as it did to the users of the alternating system perfect immunity from adverse patent suits, had the effect of increasing immensely the Thomson-Houston business; and it was for the manufacture of alternating apparatus, together with electric motors, that this new factory was erected.

It is a large three-story building, with engine and boiler house on one side, containing a five hundred horse-power Greene engine, and a battery of boilers set with the Jarvis furnace. The first floor of the building is devoted exclusively to the manufacture of motors, both for stationary and railroad use. The two floors above are used for alternating current dynamos, transformers, lightning arresters, and the parts and details of the apparatus for the new system.

The complete plant now comprises three factories and two storehouses in Lynn, having an aggregate floor space of over three acres, and covering an immense block. Engines of twelve hundred horse power capacity are used, and over one thousand men and two hundred women are employed. Artificial light is furnished by two hundred and seventy-five arc and twelve hundred incandescent lamps, and the output is somewhat over forty machines, six hundred arc lamps, and eight thousand incandescent lamps a week. The business done in 1887 compared with that of former years shows a marked increase. The thirty-one companies organized during the first year and a quarter do not seem many when compared with the installations for the last year, during which one hundred and fifty-four local lighting companies were organized; one hundred and twenty, or ten a month, being plants supplying both the arc and incandescent light.