Compagnie Francaise Thomson-Houston

Thomson-Houston Electric Company

Company type	Private
Industry	Electrical manufacturing
Founded	1882
Founder	Elihu Thomson, Edwin Houston
Fate	Merged with Edison General Electric Company to form General Electric
Headquarters	Lynn, Massachusetts , United States
Key people	Charles Albert Coffin (finance, marketing, sales), Edwin Rice (manufacturing), Elihu Thomson (research)
Number of employees	4,000 (1892)

The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing enterprise that played a significant role as a forerunner to General Electric.

History

Originally established as the American Electric Company by inventors Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston, the firm was purchased in 1882 by a consortium of investors led by Charles Albert Coffin, who were primarily shoe manufacturers from Lynn, Massachusetts. Following the acquisition, it was renamed Thomson-Houston Electric Company and relocated its operations to Western Avenue in Lynn.

Within the company, Coffin took charge of finance, marketing, and sales; Edwin Rice was responsible for manufacturing; while Thomson directed the Model Room, an early form of industrial research laboratory. By 1892, the company’s workforce numbered 4,000 employees and its sales reached approximately .

In 1884, the Thomson-Houston International Company was created with the objective of expanding sales on a global scale.

The company installed electric incandescent lighting at Lynn’s G.A.R. Hall in 1885.

By 1888, Thomson-Houston had supplied both generation and propulsion equipment for the Highland Circuit of the Lynn & Boston Railroad, marking Massachusetts’ first electric streetcar system.

In 1889, Thomson-Houston acquired the Brush Company—originally founded by Charles Brush—resolving ongoing patent conflicts related to arc lamps and dynamos.

Under financier John Pierpoint Morgan in 1892, Thomson-Houston merged with Edison General Electric Company based in Schenectady, New York, resulting in the formation of General Electric. The Lynn facility remains one of GE’s two original manufacturing plants alongside the Schenectady location.

British Thomson-Houston

British Thomson-Houston (BTH), founded in May 1896 as an American General Electric subsidiary, originated from Laing, Wharton, and Down established in 1886. In 1928, BTH merged with competitor Metropolitan-Vickers under Associated Electrical Industries (AEI), which became the largest military contractor within the British Empire during the 1930s and throughout World War II. AEI was later acquired by the General Electric Company (GEC) in 1967. In 1999, GEC separated its defense operations to create Marconi plc and Marconi Corporation plc, entities that have since evolved into Telent.

Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston

Established in Paris in 1893, Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (CFTH) served as a French counterpart to General Electric. CFTH developed into Alstom, a leading company in energy and transportation industries. A corporate demerger in 1999 resulted in the formation of what are now Vantiva and Thomson-CSF, prominent organizations within technology and defense sectors.

References and sources

References

Sources

• Hammond, John Winthrop. Men and Volts, the Story of General Electric, published 1941. 436 pages.
• Carlson, W. Bernard. Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
• Woodbury, David O. Elihu Thomson, Beloved Scientist (Museum of Science (Boston), 1944).
• Haney, John L. The Elihu Thomson Collection, American Philosophical Society Yearbook 1944.