Anglepoise Desk Lamp

Anglepoise Desk Lamp Type 1227 Chrome Circa 1944
An automotive engineer by trade, George Carwardine became a freelance engineer and inventor.

In 1932, he developed a 4-spring task lamp based on equipoising spring principles which enabled the lamp to hold any position in three planes. The designs were taken to Terry's Springs, Redditch, in order to make the special springs needed for the lamp. The design was viewed as having a great deal of potential and so Terry's licensed the design from George and began to manufacture the Anglepoise 1208 in 1933, which used 4 springs. It was a huge success and a lamp design was needed for a more domestic application, and so in 1934 the 3 spring Anglepoise 1227 was born. This product is viewed by many as the classic Anglepoise. A minor hiccup in the launch process occurred when the application to register ‘equipoise’ as a trade name was rejected on the grounds that the word already existed in the English language. Thus it became necessary to create a new name for the product. Today the word 'Anglepoise' is very much a part of our vocabulary. Interestingly, those very same laws now serve to protect the use of the name 'Anglepoise'.