George Carwardine

The Anglepoise lamp is a balanced-arm lamp designed in 1932 by British designer George Carwardine.

Carwardine was a car designer and was, at the time he invented the Anglepoise lamp, a freelance design consultant specialising in vehicle suspension systems. While developing new concepts for vehicle suspensions, he created a mechanism which he recognised had applications in other fields. He particularly saw its benefits for a task lamp. Despite many claims to the contrary, his concept had nothing whatsoever to do with mimicking the actions of the human arm. The joints and spring tension allow the lamp to be moved into a wide range of positions which it will maintain without being clamped.

Carwardine applied for a patent, number 404,615, for a design using the mechanism on 4 July 1932, and manufactured the lamp himself in the workshops of his own company, Cardine Accessories, in Bath, England. He soon found the interest and demand so great that he needed a major expansion or partner and, on 22 February 1934, entered into a licensing agreement with the Terry Spring Company in Redditch, England. Terry's manufactured and marketed the lamp, while Carwardine continued to develop the concept, producing a number of other versions and applications (for example, for supporting microphones). The original four-spring design was made for working environments, such as workshops and doctors' and dentists' surgeries, but he also designed a three-spring version for use in the home (patented on 10 February 1934, patent number 433,617).

1935 saw the release of the 1227 Anglepoise. An effective and revolutionary design, it was primarily manufactured for the home and proved to be extremely popular. When people think of the Anglepoise lamp, this is usually the design which springs to mind. The 1227 was hugely promoted by the Terry Spring Company and when the Second World War broke in 1939, the company ran an advert that same day describing it as the "ideal blackout lamp".

Although the Second World War had a detrimental effect on standard Anglepoise production, the Terry Spring Company switched its objectives to benefit the war effort and, consequently, started producing Anglepoise lamps for bombers. According to the Anglepoise website, these were so well produced that when a crashed bomber was salvaged from Loch Ness in Scotland in 1986, the lamp still worked after being given a new battery - despite being submerged for around four decades.

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Wikipedia