Lighting up the Future

The daughter of the house sneaked out for one last look at this year’s Christmas Tree before the year ended. She was awestruck to see it lit up with shining lights; there were no candles on this tree that she could see. Looking around she realised things were a bit different from her world where Queen Victoria ruled an empire and Prince Albert had started the fashion of decorated Christmas Trees.  She had even read in her father’s paper about a man named Edison who had invented electric lights.  She was an intelligent yet highly imaginative child so theorised she was somehow looking through a window into the future.

A scene from my 1/12th scale doll’s house collection. Thomas Edison  filed his first patent application for "Improvement in Electric Lights" on 14 October 1878 and is commonly recognised as the inventor of the incandescent light bulb, though there were a number of people working on it at the time. Edward Johnson, an associate of Edison, is recorded as introducing the safer electric Christmas lights when he lit up his parlour window with a string of 80 coloured lights in 1882 (at a cost of over $300 in today’s money!)


As we say goodbye to 2024, I wish you all a happy and peaceful New Year.