Joseph Swan - Early Life

Early Life

Joseph Wilson Swan was born in 1828 at Pallion Hall in Bishopwearmouth (now part of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear). His parents were John Swan and Isabella Cameron. He served an apprenticeship under a pharmacist there. He later became a partner in Mawson's, a firm of manufacturing chemists in Newcastle upon Tyne. This company existed as Mawson, Swan and Morgan until 1973, formerly located on Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne near Grey's Monument. The premises are now owned by the Swedish fashion retailer H&M and can be identified by a line of Victorian-style electric street lamps in front of the store on Grey Street. Swan lived at Underhill, a large house on Kells Lane North, Low Fell, Gateshead, where he conducted most of his experiments in the large conservatory. The house was later converted into a private fee paying, grant aided co-educational grammar school named Beaconsfield School. Here, students could still find examples of Swan's original electrical fittings.

Read more about this topic:  Joseph Swan

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.
    David Elkind (20th century)

    The great passion in a man’s life may not be for women or men or wealth or toys or fame, or even for his children, but for his masculinity, and at any point in his life he may be tempted to throw over the things for which he regularly lays down his life for the sake of that masculinity. He may keep this passion secret from women, and he may even deny it to himself, but the other boys know it about themselves and the wiser ones know it about the rest of us as well.
    Frank Pittman (20th century)