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Crompton soon began to make his own lamps that improved on Gramme's designs and those of Serrin and worked with the Swiss firm of Bergin to develop a new type of dynamo, which soon proved popular.
By 1878, Crompton was able to take over T.H.P. Dennis & Co's Chelmsford premises to form Crompton and Co, which soon became the country's leading distributor and manufacturer of electricity generating and lighting systems.
Crompton's reputation was such that, in 1880, the chemist Joseph Swan sought his opinion when he first developed incandescent lamps for indoor use. Crompton immediately saw the potential and, within a couple of years, his firm was selling Swan's lamps and the generating equipment to go with them. His rapidly developing profile in the industry meant that he was soon asked to join the fledgling British Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), an organisation he was later to head as president.”
(IEC Centenary Articles - ‘Colonel Crompton - King of Electricity’, Mark Frey).
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