Record lamp: Thornton & Sons “Eloin’s Improved” safety lamp, early 1850s

A rare brass “Eloin’s Improved” miner’s safety lamp by Thornton & Sons of Birmingham sold at Lay’s Auctioneers, Penzance, on 10 September 2026 for a hammer price of £8,800.

The lamp

The applied brass label on the oil vessel reads “Eloin’s Improved Miner’s Safety Lamp, Thornton & Sons, Manufacturers, Birmingham”. It has a brass body, a slightly waisted glass, and the gauze sits under a rising brass cover. It stands 26 cm tall.

Why it matters

The Eloin lamp dates from 1846. Its big idea was taking air in at the bottom, through gauze below the glass. That “Eloin feed” later became standard on safety lamps, so this design sits right at the start of a line that runs through to the lamps most of us collect. The Science Museum Group holds two Thornton & Sons Eloin lamps, both marked with the maker’s name and 1853. The museum notes these lamps were “very quickly extinguished… by jerking”.

How to spot one

• Air drawn in at the bottom, through gauze below the glass
• A vertical screw lock running inside one of the pillars down into the oil cup, with an alignment mark on the cup
• A Thornton & Sons, Birmingham label, and on the museum examples the date 1853
• A tall brass cover over the gauze, with a waisted glass

The price

£8,800 hammer is about A$16,700. With Lay’s fees of 25.2–28.8%, depending on how you bid, the buyer paid about A$20,900–21,500. That’s above the top of our range for the earliest British safety lamps, and it shows what a named, labelled, original Eloin can bring. It isn’t the top lamp price on record, though: see the record prices.

Sources

• Lay’s Auctioneers, sale of 10 September 2026, lot 76 (via easyliveauction.com)
• Science Museum Group collection: Thornton & Sons Eloin lamps