Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown

Brown was born on 17 June 1863 in Winterthur, canton of Zürich, as one of six children.

[1] He began working at Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon in 1884, where he headed the electrical engineering department from 1887 to 1891.

[2] In 1891, in collaboration with AEG, he succeeded in transmitting AC electric current over 175 kilometres for the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt, thus achieving a breakthrough in the field of alternating current, though he favoured the two-phase system.

[2] Over the following decade he acquired more than thirty Swiss patents for the company.

[2] After the transformation of Brown, Boveri & Cie into a S. A., Brown chaired the board of directors from 1901 until 1911, when he broke with Boveri, left the company and retired to Montagnola in the canton of Ticino.