John Wellington Starr

Who was John Wellington Starr?

John Wellington Starr was an American inventor and pioneer in development of the incandescent light bulb. Starr was born in Cincinnati. In 1844, in association with John Milton Sanders, Starr filed a U. S. patent caveat for an incandescent lamp and generator.

Starr appears never to have demonstrated his electric lamp while in Cincinnati. In February 1845 he and a business associate, Edward Augustin King, set out for England to secure British and French patents for the invention. King described construction and use of a lamp in September 1845, and British patent No. 10,919 was granted to King on November 4, 1845. The patent described two styles of lamp. In one, a platinum strip was operated in a glass enclosure, but was not in a vacuum. In the second type, a carbon strip held between two clamps was enclosed in a vacuum in the space above a column of mercury, in an arrangement similar to a barometer. The mercury column was required because vacuum pumps of the time could not provide the high vacuum needed to operate a carbon emitter for a practical duration. The construction of Starr's carbon lamp allowed the strip to be replaced when it failed, making the lamp renewable.