Let There Be Light: A History of the Lit and Phil
In this blog, Cathryn takes a short look at the history of the Lit and Phil.
The first wombat in Europe - go see him in the Great North Museum: Hancock!
The Literary and Philosophical Society or Lit and Phil for short was founded in 1793 as a conversation club by Reverend William Turner. Membership cost one guinea a year, and from 1804 women were admitted into the Society. In its’ early years, the Society met at various locations around Newcastle before moving into its’ current home on Westgate Road in 1825. The Society has had many famous Presidents and members over the years. Famous Presidents have included Lord Armstrong, Robert Stephenson and more recently Alexander Armstrong. Famous members of the Society have included Thomas Bewick, Richard Grainger, John Dobson and Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. Although the Society was more focused on debates etc. during its’ early years, it soon came to have a large collection of books and is today the largest independent library outside of London.
As discussed in the blog post ‘The King, The Mummy and The Fishwife: Ghostly Goings-On in Newcastle,’ the Lit and Phil played a large role in the creation of the Great North Museum: Hancock. As well as the two mummies discussed in that blog post, the Society also displayed the first specimens of wombat and duck-billed platypus in the country, having been given them by John Hunter, the Governor of New South Wales and honorary member of the Lit and Phil.
Although he is more famous as ‘the Father of the Railways,’ George Stephenson developed a mining safety lamp about ten years before he designed his first steam locomotive. Designed in collaboration with Nicholas Wood, Stephenson would demonstrate his Geordie lamp at the Society’s meeting in December 1815. Stephenson’s work on his safety lamp after a firedamp explosion killed 92 miners at Felling Colliery in May 1812. At around the same time Cornish chemist Humphry Davy developed his own safety lamp. This would mark the start of a long legal battle between the two men, with Stephenson being accused of stealing Davy’s work. Stephenson was viewed by Davy and his supporters as uneducated man who had come up with his safety lamp through sheer luck. This continued even after a local committee founded that Stephenson’s design was entirely his own work. The whole matter came to an end after Davy’s death, when in 1833, a House of Commons committee found that Stephenson had an equal claim to the invention of the safety lamp. The design of the Geordie lamp gave out more light than the Davy lamp and was safer in the presence of firedamp. Geordie lamps went out, whilst Davy lamps glowed red hot, risking an explosion. Geordie lamps were used exclusively in the North- East with Davy lamps being used elsewhere. The lamp’s popularity in the region is one theory for the origin of the term ‘Geordie’ to describe people from Newcastle. A copy of a Geordie lamp prototype can be seen in the Lit and Phil.
Joseph Swan
On the 3rd of February 1879, the Lit and Phil became the first public building to have a room lit by electricity when Joseph Swan demonstrated his incandescent lightbulb in the lecture theatre. Born in 1828 in the Sunderland suburb of Pallion, Swan was apprenticed to the pharmacists Hudson & Osbalditon. It is unknown wherever or not he completed his training as both Hudson & Osbalditon died during Swan’s time as an apprentice. He then went on to become a partner in Hawson, Swan and Morgan, a chemist’s run by his brother-in-law in Newcastle. Swan began work on his lightbulb in 1850 and by 1860 he had produced a working bulb, although it was inefficient and had a short life. He then spent nearly 30 years working on the structure of the bulb, mainly the filament and the vacuum within it to produce a more reliable product. About 700 people attended the demonstration at the Lit and Phil including Lord Armstrong who would light his country home Cragside with Swan’s bulbs. Cragside, along with Swan’s own home Underside in Low Fell were the first homes in the world to be lit by electricity. In 1881 London’s Savoy Theatre became the first public building to have electric lights installed, although until December that year the stage was still lit by gas. The Lit and Phil switched from gas to electric lightning at a public demonstration on the 10th of August that year. Also, that year, Mosley Street, where Swan had his offices, became the first in the world to be lit by electricity. It had also been the first one in the North, (and possibly country) to be lit by gas lightning back in 1834. 1881 also saw Swan receive France’s highest honour the Legion d’Honneur and the establishment of the Swan Electric Light Company in Benwell. Swan would also work on the development of an electric miner’s safety lamp with his first model being demonstrated on the 14th of May 1881 at the Mining Institute. Whilst Swan was able to improve his electric safety lamp, it would still be about another 20 years before effective lamps were being regularly used in mines. He was knighted in 1904 and was President of the Lit and Phil from 1911 until 1914. He died on the 27th of May 1914 at his home in the Surrey village of Warlingham.
As you can see the Lit and Phil has been at the forefront of knowledge and discovery since it’s founding over 200 years ago.