Memory Lane!

If we want to look at past brand names, electric lamps provide some illuminating reading - sorry!


I'll start with Mazda. The name was conceived in 1909 by GE,  who had much interest in Thomas Edison's work. In due course, a splinter of GE was formed called British Thomson Houston, who marketed lamps under the Mazda brand. BTH was absorbed into AEI in the 1950s. By now there was a syndicate of many associated brand names - Atlas, Ekco, Ensign, Royal Ediswan, Metrovick, Cosmos, Omega. Thorn Group bought a majority share of AEI's lighting division and, in the late 1960s, acquired full ownership of the division when the rest of AEI was taken over by GEC. Brand names were now rationalised, with Atlas used mainly for the industrial market and Mazda for the domestic market. Around 1990, GE bought out Thorn's lighting division. The Mazda name has thus gone full circle. It seems to by lying dormant with GE at the moment, but it could well re-emerge sometime in the future.


Philips has been making lamps of every conceivable type for longer ago than any of us can remember till the present day. It had sub-brands callled Luxram, Kingston and Stella, but these seem to have disappeared.


The Osram brand used to be made and marketed by GEC under licence of its German owner. It took over Ascot lamps, which it retained as a sub-brand, along with Elasta. The brand disappeared from shops in the 1990s. It is now back with a fresh logo and made in Germany, not England.


There was a manufacturer with an odd position in the industry, Cryselco, jointly owned by Philips and GEC.


Crompton, part of Hawker Siddeley, has been manufacturing lamps for a long time, up to the present day. (As an aside, this group made Vidor batteries, another lost brand.)


There is still more - an interesting group of smaller manufacturers called the "Controlled Companies). They were jointly owned, in various proportions, by the fore-mentioned "big four" groups - Thorn, GEC, Philips and Crompton, and to a small degree by Cryselco. The biggest company of this group was Ismay, others included Splendor and Britannia, who manufactured lamps under the Sunshine brand for sale at Woolworth's. (Woolworth's also sold another brand  - Vesta which was manufactured by part of the Thorn Group.)


One other manufacturer, seemingly independent of all this, was called British Luma, which manufactured lamps under the UC brand, sold mainly in Co-operative stores.


I guess that the main reason why most of these brands have disappeared, apart from the largest, was owing to the demise of tungsten filament lamps in favour of low energy lamps. It was probably not economical to re-equip the factories in most cases.

If we want to look at past brand names, electric lamps provide some illuminating reading - sorry!


I'll start with Mazda. The name was conceived in 1909 by GE,  who had much interest in Thomas Edison's work. In due course, a splinter of GE was formed called British Thomson Houston, who marketed lamps under the Mazda brand. BTH was absorbed into AEI in the 1950s. By now there was a syndicate of many associated brand names - Atlas, Ekco, Ensign, Royal Ediswan, Metrovick, Cosmos, Omega. Thorn Group bought a majority share of AEI's lighting division and, in the late 1960s, acquired full ownership of the division when the rest of AEI was taken over by GEC. Brand names were now rationalised, with Atlas used mainly for the industrial market and Mazda for the domestic market. Around 1990, GE bought out Thorn's lighting division. The Mazda name has thus gone full circle. It seems to by lying dormant with GE at the moment, but it could well re-emerge sometime in the future.


Philips has been making lamps of every conceivable type for longer ago than any of us can remember till the present day. It had sub-brands callled Luxram, Kingston and Stella, but these seem to have disappeared.


The Osram brand used to be made and marketed by GEC under licence of its German owner. It took over Ascot lamps, which it retained as a sub-brand, along with Elasta. The brand disappeared from shops in the 1990s. It is now back with a fresh logo and made in Germany, not England.


There was a manufacturer with an odd position in the industry, Cryselco, jointly owned by Philips and GEC.


Crompton, part of Hawker Siddeley, has been manufacturing lamps for a long time, up to the present day. (As an aside, this group made Vidor batteries, another lost brand.)


There is still more - an interesting group of smaller manufacturers called the "Controlled Companies). They were jointly owned, in various proportions, by the fore-mentioned "big four" groups - Thorn, GEC, Philips and Crompton, and to a small degree by Cryselco. The biggest company of this group was Ismay, others included Splendor and Britannia, who manufactured lamps under the Sunshine brand for sale at Woolworth's. (Woolworth's also sold another brand  - Vesta which was manufactured by part of the Thorn Group.)


One other manufacturer, seemingly independent of all this, was called British Luma, which manufactured lamps under the UC brand, sold mainly in Co-operative stores.


I guess that the main reason why most of these brands have disappeared, apart from the largest, was owing to the demise of tungsten filament lamps in favour of low energy lamps. It was probably not economical to re-equip the factories in most cases.