Origins
Inspired by the works of American scientist Joseph Henry and English scientist Michael Faraday, the circuit breaker was invented in 1836 by an American, Charles Grafton Page.
An early form of circuit breaker was described by Thomas Edison in an 1879 patent application, although his commercial power distribution system used fuses. Its purpose was to protect lighting circuit wiring from accidental short-circuits and overloads. A modern miniature circuit breaker similar to the ones now in use was patented by Brown, Boveri & Cie in 1924. Hugo Stotz, an engineer who had sold his company, Stotz-Kontakt, to BBC, was credited as the inventor on DRP (Deutsches Reichspatent) 458329. Stotz's invention was the forerunner of the modern thermal-magnetic breaker commonly used in household load centers to this day.
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