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| Born | 31 May 1845 Thirsk |
| Died | 15 February 1940 | Age 94 Leeds |
Colonel Crompton 1893
Rookes Evelyn Bell Crompton was born at Sion Hill, near Thirsk in Yorkshire , England on 31 May 1845 , one of five children. His passion for engineering began early. In his autobiography, Reminiscences, Crompton tells of a trip to London 's Great Exhibition of 1851.His schooling started at Sharow, near Ripon in Yorkshire, along with 19 other boys, aged between 7 and 15. One of his fellow pupils there was Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
First Toaster
Crompton and Co. went on to develop the first electric toaster 1893 in Leeds England. This was the forerunner of today's toasters. The device was quite simple and a person had to turn the bread over to toast both sides and turn the machine off by hand.
Crompton
Cromptons many inventions enabled him to take over T.H.P. Dennis & Co's Chelmsford premises to form Crompton and Co in 1878, it 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.
History
Toasting bread began as a method of prolonging the life of bread. The word comes from a Latin word tostum, meaning scorching or burning.
Links
Colonel Crompton
