Lava Lamp Inventor Edward Craven Walker Dies

Aug 23, 2000 - © NancySue Krenrich Hamm

The lava lamp, like the black light, peace symbol, and Volkswagen bug, is a sort of unofficial icon of the ‘60s generation.

Unfortunately, Edward Craven Walker, inventor of the lava lamp, died of cancer on August 15, 2000.  With all due respect, Walker’s death at age 82, was not, by most life expectancy statistics, untimely.

Walker launched production of what he originally wanted to call the “Astro Lamp,” in 1963. On the cutting edge of psychedelia, his factory in Poole, southern England supplied the hungry-for-hip world with lava lamps.

In 1989, Walker sold his rights to Cressida Granger, and her company, Mathmos (named from the bubbling force in the film “Barbarella”) now manufactures the lamp.

According to Robert Barr’s August 19 Associated Press report of Walker’s death, he had said of his brainchild, “It’s like the cycle of life. It grows, breaks up, falls down, and then starts all over again.”

Walker was also an avid nudist. 
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