Trade Journals

For many decades LEN served as the principal trade rag of the British lighting industry. Introduced in 1967 by Colin Troup and his publishing company 'Equipment News Limited', it filled a gap that was not adequately served by its principal competitor, the long-standing Light and Lighting journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society.

Many early lighting products were born out of the most advanced scientific breakthroughs of their era, and as such the industry's traditional journals maintained a strong focus on the publication of academic research papers and reports. These were often far too technical for the average lighting man, who was more interested in commercially relevant news.

The rich era of the 1960s introduced a terrific expansion of the lighting industry, and saw a major shift from pure technical functionality towards increased aesthetics. This was fuelled by fast-moving trends in new lamps, luminaires and control gear, and in particular the importance of lighting design for new applications. Lighting Equipment News was established to communicate these exciting developments to the masses. In 1975 LEN was transferred to the Maclean-Hunter publishing house. Its format was changed into that of a full-colour tabloid newspaper, renowned for its consistent speed in being first to report on new products and industry trends. The enthusiasm of the news sections was backed up by highly informative editorials, pitched at a technical level to interest the average specifier or installer of lighting equipment. In 1985 it received a facelift and introducion of a bold new title heading, and in December 1994 its ownership was taken over by EMAP Business Publications. For many years afterwards, the author of this website served as associate editor with responsibility for lamps and control gear.

The series ran until August 2005. At that time its editor Ray Molony, who had been at the helm for the past decade, introduced another change of format. He ably elevated both the graphical standard as well as the editorial content, and re-branded the publication as the internationally acclaimed Lighting magazine. It continued in publication for another decade until the end of 2014, before losing its prime place to the competing Lux Magazine which had been established by Molony a few years earlier.

The earliest of the British lighting journals was entitled The Illuminating Engineer, founded in January 1908 by the highly enthusiastic scholar of lighting technologies, Mr. Leon Gaster. During his frequent travels to the USA he had been deeply impressed by the American journal which shares an identical title, published monthly by the Illuminating Engineering Society of New York since March 1906. Gaster modelled his British periodical along the same lines, and was so successful in motivating British manufacturers that he co-founded the Illuminating Engineering Society of London in 1909. From that moment onwards, The Illuminating Engineer became the official journal of the British IES. There was also an Australian IES which had its own journal with the same title, and it is therefore important not to confuse these publications.

The confusion was maintained in January 1925 when the British journal followed the exact same name change as its American counterpart, and became The Illuminating Engineer - The Journal of Good Lighting. Some references incorrectly cite the publication only as The Journal of Good Lighting, whereas in fact its official title remained The Illuminating Engineer. After twenty years serving at the helm of his institution and the editor of his beloved journal, Gaster passed away. He was succeeded in his role as editor by another stalwart of the British lighting industry, J. Stewart Dow.

From January 1936 the journal was re-named again to Light & Lighting, perhaps to avoid the perennial confusion with the American editions, since both publications were becoming increasingly popular worldwide. The volume numbering continued from the earlier series, the first issue of L&L therefore being Volume 29. On this occasion the structure was changed to a more popular style for wider appeal. Since its inception, The Illuminating Engineer had published every single technical paper presented at the frequent meetings of the Illuminating Engineering Society of London. The rapidly growing quantity of papers as well as their technical depth began to overload the journal, and much of the content was far too detailed to be of interest to the masses. These were therefore dropped, or reported only in brief. A new parallel journal was introduced, entitled Transactions of the Illuminating Engineering Society of London, for continued publication of the British lighting industry's technical papers. Incidentally that parallel journal ran until the end of 1960, when in 1961 the Illuminating Engineering Society of London merged with the Institution of Gas Engineers' lighting division, and the Transactions were terminated. They were later resurrected from 1969 as a new series, Lighting Research & Technology.

Light & Lighting continued as the premier trade journal of the United Kingdom, until it met with stiff competition from its new competitor Lighting Equipment News after 1967. LEN rapidly gained a large readership base among the popular trade press, whereas L&L remained a semi-professional professional journal - although no longer satisfying the entire technical readership base, many of whom migrated to read Lighting Research & Technology.

During 1976 the Illuminating Engineering Society of London merged with its sister organisation, the Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers, to create the Chartered Institution of Building Services, CIBS. The two institutions' journals were similarly merged. The long-running series Light & Lighting therefore released its last issue in December 1977, after having published an astonishing 70 volumes.

The new joint CIBS journal was launched in January 1978 under the title Building Services Journal, with volume numbers re-starting at No.1. It contained a mixture of articles covering all aspects of building engineering, with only occasional lighting-related news, and as such it failed to attract continued attention from many lighting experts. The CIBS was re-named in 1985 when that institution became the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, CIBSE, and the title of its journal was similarly re-named Journal of the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers, starting again at Volume 1, but with very limited lighting-related content. From that time onwards, British lighting-related materials were published mainly in LEN and LR&T, the latter having been taken over as a second journal of CIBSE.