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Precursor of the US General Electric company

The Thomson Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company that was one of the precursors of General Electric.

The company began as the American Electric Company, founded by Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston. In 1882, Charles A. Coffin led a group of investors—largely shoe manufacturers from Lynn, Massachusetts—in buying American Electric from investors in New Britain, Connecticut. They renamed the company Thomson Houston Electric Company and moved its operations to a new building on Lynn's Western Avenue. Coffin led the company and organized its finances, marketing, and sales operations. Elwin W. Rice organized the manufacturing facilities, and Elihu Thomson ran the Model Room, a precursor to the industrial research lab. With their leadership, the company grew into an enterprise with sales of and 4000 employees by 1892. In 1884, Thomson Houston International Company was organized to promote international sales. In 1885, the Lynn G. A. R. Hall was constructed using electric incandescent lighting by Thomson Houston. In 1888, Thomson Houston supplied the Lynn and Boston Railroad with the generation and propulsion equipment for the Highland Circuit in Lynn, the first electric streetcar in Massachusetts. In 1889, Thomson Houston bought out the Brush Company (founded by Charles F. Brush) which resolved the arc lamp and dynamo patent disputes between them. In 1892, Thomson Houston was merged with the Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York (arranged by J. P. Morgan), to form the General Electric Company. The Lynn plant, along with one in Schenectady, remain to this day as the two original GE factories.

British Thomson Houston (BTH) was created as a subsidiary of (American) General Electric in May 1896. It was previously known as Laing, Wharton, and Down which was founded in 1886. BTH became part of Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in 1928, which saw BTH merged with its rival Metropolitan Vickers. This deal made AEI the largest military contractor of the British Empire during the '30s and the '40s, so during World War II. AEI would itself be acquired by the General Electric Company plc or GEC in 1967. GEC demerged its defense businesses in 1999 to become Marconi plc and Marconi Corporation plc, now Telent plc.

In 1893, the Compagnie Française Thomson Houston (CFTH) was formed in Paris, a sister company to GE in the United States. It is from this company that Alstom would evolve. A demerger in 1999 formed what is now Technicolor SA and Thomson CSF (now Thales Group).