Edmundsons

of 44 Stafford Street, Dublin

of Stafford Works, 35 Capel St, Dublin

Company established as a portion of the business of Edmundsons Furnishing and Engineering Co. Ltd. which commenced in 1830 and was liquidated in 1906.

1844 John Richardson Wigham was apprenticed to his brother-in-law Joshua Edmundson in Capel Street, Dublin. Edmundson and Co. dealt in iron-mongery, ran a brass foundry, and carried out tin plate working and japanning. After John joined, they also provided gas generation plants.

On 26 January 1848, Joshua unexpectedly died. Though John was only 19 years old, he took over operation of the company and provided for his sister and her children.

Despite his relative youth and limited education John Wigham proved to be a very successful businessman. He concentrated on the provision of more efficient gas-plants of his own design, and the name changed to Joshua Edmundson and Co.

1853 Joshua Edmundson and Co occupied offices at 25-27 Capel St., Dublin

Wigham's relatives, in Scotland, were involved in shipbuilding, and he developed an interest in lighting used as a navigational aid at sea. The first successful lighted buoy was patented by John Wigham in 1861. It was installed in the river Clyde.

1863 Wigham was given a grant by the Dublin Ballast Board to develop a system for gas illumination of lighthouses.

1865 the Baily Lighthouse at Howth Head was fitted with Wigham's new gas 'crocus' burner, 4 times more powerful than equivalent oil lights.

1868 An improved 'composite' design of burner was installed in the Baily light; this was 13 times more powerful than the most brilliant light then known, according to the scientist John Tyndall, an advisor to the United Kingdom's lighthouse authority, Trinity House.

1870 the light at Wicklow Head was fitted with Wigham's patent intermittent flashing mechanism, which timed the gas supply by means of clockwork. When this mechanism was combined with a revolving lens in Rockabill Lighthouse, the world's first lighthouse with a group-flashing characteristic was produced.

By 1880 J. Edmundson and Co represented the company in London

1889 J. Edmundson and Co provided gas and oil burners for the Bull Rock Lighthouse

1897 Edmundsons' Electricity Corporation was incorporated as a public company to acquire Edmundsons Ltd, engineers and electricians, of 19 Great George St,

1906 Incorporated as a limited company in February.

1914 of Dublin. Lighthouse engineers and manufacturers of long continuous petroleum lamps. Speciality: petroleum buoy and beacon lamps.

Later became F. Barrett and Co, of Dublin

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