Edward Weston (chemist)

Edward Weston ( born May 9, 1850 in Oswestry, England; † August 20, 1936 in Montclair, New Jersey, United States) was a chemist, who distinguished himself in electroplating and including the Weston standard cell invented.

His parents were Edward Weston and Margaret, née Jones. During his medical studies he developed an interest in chemistry. After he obtained his medical degree in 1870, he emigrated to the United States, where he found a job in the electroplating industry.

In 1871 he married Wilhelmina Seidel from Blankenheim ( district of Mansfeld - South Harz ), with whom he had two children ( Edward Faraday Weston ).

In 1876 he received a patent on a DC generator and founded the following year in New Jersey, the Weston Dynamo Electric Machine Company, the first company in the United States, which established solely on these devices. For the expansion of the business, he started developing Dynamos Coal - arc lamps. The company was renamed Weston Electric Light Company and was awarded the contract to illuminate the Brooklyn Bridge. Around this time, he developed independently by Thomas Alva Edison a useful for continuous use incandescent lamp with a carbon filament.

He mixed the resistance alloys constantan and manganin, developed measuring instruments and founded in 1888 the Weston Electrical Instrument Corporation.

He devised a method for the production of real permanent magnets and developed a magnetic tachometer.

Overall, he held 309 U.S. patents.