Editing General Electric Company (section)

===Early years (1886–88)===
[[File:Sir Hugo Hirst, Bart (Forty Years of Electrical Progress).jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Hugo Hirst]], {{Circa|1930}}]]
[[File:Main switchboard, c. 1888 (Forty Years of Electrical Progress).jpg|thumb|right|upright|Early switchboard, {{Circa|1888}}]]
GEC had its origins in the ''G. Binswanger and Company'', an electrical goods [[wholesaler]] established in [[London]] in the 1880s by a German-Jewish immigrant, Gustav Binswanger (later Gustav Byng).<ref name="Carlebach1991">{{cite book |first=Julius |last=Carlebach |title=Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-speaking Jews in the United Kingdom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-6WlsDsuo8C&pg=PA362 |year=1991 |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |isbn=978-3-16-145741-8 |pages=362–}}</ref><ref name=ipd>{{cite web |url=http://www.ipdgroup.com.au/Page/About+Us/GEC+History.aspx |title=GEC History |website=IPD Group |access-date=5 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100329015638/http://www.ipdgroup.com.au/Page/About%2BUs/GEC%2BHistory.aspx |archive-date=29 March 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Regarded as the year GEC was founded, 1886 saw a fellow immigrant, [[Hugo Hirst]], join Byng, and the company changed its name to ''The General Electric Apparatus Company (G. Binswanger)''.<ref name="ipd"/><ref name = "nationalarchives 1991">{{cite web |url = https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/lists/GB-2004-GEC.htm#General%20Electric%20Co%20Ltd |title = Summary report on early corporate records of General Electric Company plc, electrical equipment manufacturers, London |publisher = Historical Manuscripts Commission |via = nationalarchives.gov.uk |first = S. |last = Roberts |date = September 1991}}</ref>

Their small business found early success with its unorthodox method of supplying electrical components over the counter. Hugo Hirst was an entrepreneurial salesman who saw the potential of electricity and was able to direct the standardisation of an industry in its infancy. He travelled across Europe with an eye for the latest products, and in 1887 the company published the first electrical catalogue of its kind.<ref name="ipd"/> The following year, the company acquired its first factory in [[Salford, Greater Manchester|Salford]], where [[electric bell]]s, telephones, [[ceiling rose]]s and switches were manufactured.<ref name="ipd"/>