Safety Lamps/Maurice Baby Wolf

Safety Lamps

Maurice Baby Wolf.JPG - MAURICE BABY WOLF - Nickel plated Baby Wolf, stamped on lower ring with WOLF SAFETY LAMP CO (WM MAURICE) LTD SHEFFIELD BABY WOLF MBS steel base, bonnet & hook, brass glass cage and supports, round wick burner, flint sparker, magnetic rim lock, air vent in bottom ring and an adjustable working air vent on the top ring, tag with number 2608 attached to base, 7 1/2" tall excluding hook and 2 3/8" diameter (The Wolf Safety Lamp Company was established in Leeds in the 1880's as a distributor for German mining lamps. Wolf of Leeds had been formed to take advantage of the increasing popularity of the German-made Wolf safety lamp. The business did not do well and in 1911 the company went into liquidation. An agreement was reached with the Friemann and Wolf Company in Germany by William Maurice to move the Wolf Leeds Company to Sheffield and re-establish the Wolf Safety Lamp Company in England. On July 1, 1916 Maurice purchased the entire British business, incorporated it and moved it to Sheffield. William Maurice was born in 1872 and started his career in 1890 as an electrical engineering apprentice with the John Davis and Son Company of Derby. There he learned the business of lamp making and helped install some of the earliest mining electrical plants in England. In 1894 he became an electrical engineer at Swanwick Collieries, later rising to colliery manager in 1899. In 1903 he became general mine manager of Hucknall Collieries near Nottingham and in 1909 he organized and founded the Association of Mining Electrical Engineers. After moving the Wolf Company from Leeds to Sheffield, Maurice continued to manufacture safety lamps, open flame acetylene lamps and introduced a new product, the electric miners’ lamp. Wolf claimed to be the original inventors of the alkaline lamp and the first company to produce cap lamps in England. In 1934 Maurice moved the company from its original location on South Street in Sheffield to the larger Saxon Road Works, also in Sheffield, where it is still sited today. Throughout the following decade many new developments were carried out in order to meet new safety regulations and demands for better lighting, the most significant was the development and the introduction of compressed air operated lamps. These are still manufactured today, though much improved due to modern light source and control technology. During WWII, the company’s 50 employees made aircraft parts and other munitions but resumed lamp production at war’s end. William Maurice died in 1951 and Monica Maurice took over as Managing Director of the Wolf Company for the next 30 years. The 1960s and 70s were a period of great change and diversification for the company as the demand for mine lighting decreased. Under her leadership, the company established new markets for innovative safety products in the petrochemical and marine industries and by the 1980s, the company had developed new industrial safety lamp products establishing themselves as national and international market leaders. She was succeeded as Managing Director by her son, John Jackson, and the company continues in business today at the Saxon Road Works. See Barrie, The Wand of Science – A History of the British Flame Safety Lamp, pp 159-160)

Maurice Baby Wolf | MAURICE BABY WOLF - Nickel plated Baby Wolf, stamped on lower ring with WOLF SAFETY LAMP CO (WM MAURICE) LTD SHEFFIELD BABY WOLF MBS steel base, bonnet & hook, brass glass cage and supports, round wick burner, flint sparker, magnetic rim lock, air vent in bottom ring and an adjustable working air vent on the top ring, tag with number 2608 attached to base, 7 1/2" tall excluding hook and 2 3/8" diameter (The Wolf Safety Lamp Company was established in Leeds in the 1880's as a distributor for German mining lamps. Wolf of Leeds had been formed to take advantage of the increasing popularity of the German-made Wolf safety lamp. The business did not do well and in 1911 the company went into liquidation. An agreement was reached with the Friemann and Wolf Company in Germany by William Maurice to move the Wolf Leeds Company to Sheffield and re-establish the Wolf Safety Lamp Company in England. On July 1, 1916 Maurice purchased the entire British business, incorporated it and moved it to Sheffield. William Maurice was born in 1872 and started his career in 1890 as an electrical engineering apprentice with the John Davis and Son Company of Derby. There he learned the business of lamp making and helped install some of the earliest mining electrical plants in England. In 1894 he became an electrical engineer at Swanwick Collieries, later rising to colliery manager in 1899. In 1903 he became general mine manager of Hucknall Collieries near Nottingham and in 1909 he organized and founded the Association of Mining Electrical Engineers. After moving the Wolf Company from Leeds to Sheffield, Maurice continued to manufacture safety lamps, open flame acetylene lamps and introduced a new product, the electric miners’ lamp. Wolf claimed to be the original inventors of the alkaline lamp and the first company to produce cap lamps in England. In 1934 Maurice moved the company from its original location on South Street in Sheffield to the larger Saxon Road Works, also in Sheffield, where it is still sited today. Throughout the following decade many new developments were carried out in order to meet new safety regulations and demands for better lighting, the most significant was the development and the introduction of compressed air operated lamps. These are still manufactured today, though much improved due to modern light source and control technology. During WWII, the company’s 50 employees made aircraft parts and other munitions but resumed lamp production at war’s end. William Maurice died in 1951 and Monica Maurice took over as Managing Director of the Wolf Company for the next 30 years. The 1960s and 70s were a period of great change and diversification for the company as the demand for mine lighting decreased. Under her leadership, the company established new markets for innovative safety products in the petrochemical and marine industries and by the 1980s, the company had developed new industrial safety lamp products establishing themselves as national and international market leaders. She was succeeded as Managing Director by her son, John Jackson, and the company continues in business today at the Saxon Road Works. See Barrie, The Wand of Science – A History of the British Flame Safety Lamp, pp 159-160)

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