Matthew Evans is one of two Canadians who developed and patented an

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxid ...

, on July 24, 1874, five years before

Thomas Alva Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

's U.S. patent on the device. Evans, from

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, and his friend Henry Woodward, made the light bulb by sending electricity through a filament made of carbon. The two men had patented it but did not have enough money to develop their invention, so they sold their US patent 181,613 to Thomas Edison for US$5,000 ($US 100,000 in 2006 dollars). They also granted Edison an exclusive licence to their equivalent Canadian patent.

External links

The First Electric Light Bulb
Canadian inventors People from Old Toronto Year of death missing Year of birth missing {{Canada-engineer-stub