"We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day..."
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
George Carwardine's (1887-1948) company was a car manufacturing factory and it was there that he came up with the idea of arranging springs on a metal arm that could be adjusted in orientation and yet stay in place when released. The design mimicked the. movement of the human arm and was inspired by the constant tension principle. He patented the design in 1931, but it was not until the year after that the idea came to him to use it to angle temporarily the direction of a lamp.
To the moveable sprung arm, he attached a heavy base and a directional lamp, which allowed the lamp to be moved to face any direction but remain rigid in position. Carwardine found the lamps useful in his factory for illuminating the assembly process, but he soon realized there was nothing to stop them being used in offices and elsewhere. With the addition of a shade over the bulb, the beam could be focused in a particular direction, giving his design the advantage of using less energy than competing models. The shade also helped direct the beam away from the eyes and could be adjusted to stop light dazzling the person working.
The Anglepoise® lamp boasted to give as much light with a 25-Watt bulb as a conventional lamp would with a 60-Watt bulb. The directional action of the lamp turned out to be ideal for office use, especially for illuminating books and papers. The product took off straight away. Today Anglepoise® lamps are still commonplace in offices worldwide and over the years there have only been minor changes to Carwardine's original design.
