Provincial Incandescent Fittings Co. (PIFCO) by Ross Mellows Established in Manchester in 1900, Provincial Incandescent Fittings Co or PIFCO as they are better known, sold a wide range of lighting, stoves & household goods. PIFCO were originally purely merchants rather than manufacturers & the ability to change their portfolio of goods may help explain their longevity. Today they are better known for the brand names Russell Hobbs & Carmen. In 2001 they became Salton Europe Limited after they were bought by American company Salton Inc. This stove is the "Corona" from Howes & Burley Ltd, Birmingham, England
From the Pressure Lamp Catalogue. ::Neil:: PIFCO was established by Joseph Simon Webber in 1900 as a retailing merchant business selling a range of Stoves, Heaters, lamps and general household goods. In general therefore they either bought in or commissioned lamps from various manufacturers from the British Empire and Europe. Most of the products listed are therefore not made by Pifco. Joseph worked as a hawker in Swansea and then in 1898 as an auctioneer taking a room in a shop and selling gold. He then worked as agent for the American Electric Co. and became an importer of gas mantles. Joseph filed for bankruptcy in 1900, and with the sale of his wife’s jewellery for £50 set up Pifco and in May 1902 became a public limited liability company which also had mining interests in Nigeria. Until the late 1920s the company sold a range of oil and gasoline domestic lighting but by the 1930s had almost exclusively changed to selling battery and electric appliances. Joseph Simon Webber was born in Bjostic (Brzostek), Galicia, then part of the Austro Hungarian empire and now in Poland. Joseph was the son of Elimelech (Michael) Viber (Weber) and Rebecca (Rivka) Rachel Stein, who with their three children arrived in England in the 1880s. Joseph married Rose Heller, daughter of Maier and Blima Heller from Jassy, Rumania on 15th September 1897. Joseph and Rose had three children; Julius 1899, Louisa 1901 and Alfred 1905. Joseph became a naturalised British citizen signing declaration No 16129 on the 6th July 1906. Rose died 1943 and Joseph died 1955. The company remained with the Webber family until it was sold in 2001 by Michael Webber grandson of the founder Joseph.
