British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was founded in 1896 in Rugby, Warwickshire. In 1911, BTH obtained the GE patents for tungsten filaments and the Mazda trademark. From the 1930s the company became well known for the production of street lighting columns and lanterns - some of our favourite and rarest finds are the urban prismatic lanterns they produced in the 1950s. The company was abolished during the mass mergers of the 1960s and consolidated under the AEI banner.

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In 1911 BTH aquired licences for all of General Electric's drawn-wire light bulbs, which they produce under the Mazda trademark.