Lava Lamp - History

History

A British accountant Edward Craven-Walker invented the lava lamp in 1963, after watching a homemade egg timer made out of a cocktail shaker filled with liquids bubbling on a stove top at a pub. His U.S. Patent 3,387,396 for "Display Device" was filed in 1965 and issued in 1968. Craven-Walker's company was named Crestworth and was based in Poole, Dorset, in the United Kingdom. Craven-Walker named the lamp "Astro", and had variations such as the "Astro Mini" and the "Astro Coach" lantern.

Craven-Walker presented it at a Brussels trade show in 1965, where the entrepreneur Adolph Wertheimer noticed it. Wertheimer and his business partner William M. Rubinstein bought the US rights to manufacture and sell it as the "Lava Lite" via Lava Corporation or Lava Manufacturing Corporation. Wertheimer sold his shares to Hy Spector who took the product into production, manufacturing and marketing the Lava Lite in his Chicago factory at 1650 W. Irving Park Rd in the mid-1960s. Rubinstein stayed on as a vice president.

The lamps were a success throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Lava Corporation's name changed to Lava-Simplex-Scribe International in the early 1970s, and they also made instant-loading camera-film cartridges, as well as postage-stamp vending machines. In the late 1970s Spector sold Lava Simplex International to Michael Eddie and Lawrence Haggerty of Haggerty Enterprises. Haggerty Enterprises continues to sell their lava lamp in the US. "Lava lamp" has been used as a generic term but Lavaworld has claimed violation of trademarks.

In the 1990s, Craven-Walker, who had retained the rights for the rest of the world, took on a business partner called Cressida Granger. They changed the company name to Mathmos in 1992. Mathmos continues to make Lava Lamps and related products. Mathmos lava lamps are still made in the original factory in Poole, Dorset, UK.