www.britishinvention.com | The History of the Lava Lamp | Mathmos invented the lava lamp in Great Britain in 1963 | Welcome to the Gallery Dedicated to Vintage & Contemporary Mathmos lava lamps since 1963 to the Present Day.

Below: Welcome to www.britishinvention.com, a website dedicated to the history of the Mathmos lava lamp and other fantastic lights from 1963 to the present day. Simply choose an image below and enjoy the galleries.

Mini History of the Original British lava lamp: After decades of research, Edward Craven Walker introduced the iconic Astro lava lamp in 1963. The Astro lamp would become a landmark product and a simply timeless piece of lighting history. The Astro lamp would be followed by a mini version titled Astro Mini. Other variations include Astro Lantern, which merge the fascination of a ship storm lantern with all things Astro. Astro Lantern was even featured with nautical colour-ways such as: Starboard and Port. Astro Nordic, utilised a tubular bottle on a wide variety of base and cap designs. Cosmos, often seen in France and other export markets featured the Nordic bottle placed on a pedestal style base.. Crestworth's Telstar presented an entry-level design featuring a flared base design with a flat cap.

Other lighting concepts by Crestworth were also created such as the Traction lamp, Cannon Timer, Mistrolite and Aromalite. Crestworth also created a very clever functional white light titled: Twiggy, which would feature versatile geometry. Crestworth also entered the world of Glitter with Glitterlite and Living Jewel to create dazzling beautiful glitter lamp designs. Glitterlite presents slow moving shimmering glitter. Living Jewel by Crestworth presented a faster glittering effect with larger pieces of glitter swirling. Crestworth diversified into decorative fibre optic designs which are still highly collectable and beautiful today. Fibre optic examples include: Galaxy and PhantomLite to name just two.

The 1990s was a massive period of revival for the lava lamp. In the late 1980s, Cressida Granger & David Mulley approached Christine and Edward Craven Walker, to introduce the product to the new generation. Designs from the past would return, featuring new finishes, colour-ways and even new products. Lunar (1991) and Telstar (1993), space age rocket shaped lava lamps were created and were instantly popular. Early examples of Telstar were finished with anodised metal parts and matching colour combinations. Astro would return, in an aluminium finish, trading the copper finish seen so often in the past. Crestworth would become known as Mathmos, a name taken from the cult 1960s film Barbarella.

Astro Mini would return as the Astro Baby in 1997 with a side sister product, offering glitter as Glitter Baby. Telstar would see a Millennium Edition launched and 3-in-1 Astro offered three colours in one lamp via different coloured bulbs and a white bottle. New fibre optic designs were launched and the period even saw its own aromatherapy lamp, named Sputnik launched in a rather spacey form. The Jet would also be offered in a white range of colourful finishes at the end of the period. Beyond the 1990s, Mathmos introduced Fluidium and Jetstream, Fireflow (Candle-powered lava lamps) and so much more ...