Who Invented the Oven?
While the first record of an oven being built was in 1490 in Alsace, France, Jordan Mott invented the first coal oven in 1833, and British inventor James Sharp patented the first gas oven in 1826. The first patent for an electric oven was issued to Thomas Hadaway in 1896.
People in ancient times cooked on fires and used simple masonry. Ancient Greeks cooked bread in simple ovens, while tall brick and mortar hearths with chimneys were constructed in the Middle Ages. Cast iron ovens surfaced around 1728. Several more innovations in coal, kerosene and gas ovens came to light prior to the electric oven. Despite Hadaway’s patent, some historians credit Canadian Thomas Ahearn for creating the first electric oven in 1882. However, the Ahearn oven wasn’t officially put in service until 1892 inside the Windsor Hotel of Ottawa.
