Thomson-Houston Electric Company

The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company which was one of the precursors of the General Electric company.

The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was formed in 1883 in the United States when a group of Lynn, Massachusetts, investors led by Charles A. Coffin bought out Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston's American Electric Company from their New Britain, Connecticut, investors. At that time the company moved its operations to a new building on Western Ave. in Lynn, Massachusetts, because many of the investors were shoe manufacturers from Lynn.

Charles A. Coffin led the company and organized its finances, marketing and sales operations. Elwin W. Rice organized the manufacturing facilities, and Elihu Thomson ran the Model Room which was a precursor to the industrial research lab. With their leadership the company grew into an enterprise of $10 million in sales and 4000 employees by 1892.

In 1884 Thomson-Houston International Company was organized to promote international sales.

In 1888 Thomson-Houston supplied the Lynn & Boston Street Railway with the generation and propulsion equipment for the Highland Circuit in Lynn, the first electric streetcar in Massachusetts.

In 1889 Thomson-Houston bought out the Brush Company (founded by Charles F. Brush) which resolved the arc lamp and dynamo patent disputes between them.

Thomson-Houston later merged with the Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, to form the General Electric Company in 1892, with plants in Lynn and Schenectady, both of which remain to this day as the two original GE factories.

British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was created as a subsidiary of (American) General Electric in May 1896. It was previously known as Laing, Wharton and Down which was founded in 1886.

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