London electric street lightsIn 1891, the city-wide electrical lighting of London streets was marked by a ceremony where the Mayor laid the foundation stone of the principal junction box. This committment came after a dozen years of experiments. Contracts had been awarded to the Brush Electrical Engineering Company and the Laing, Wharton and Down Construction Syndicate for different sections of the city. Each provided their own generating station. The junction box allowed each company to provide back-up power to the other in case either lost production due to any serious accident at a generating station. Every street, lane, court and alley was to be lighted with a total of 400 arc lamps with 2,000 nominal candle power and 1,000 incandescent lamps of varying candle power. Illumination was hoped to be twenty times more than that provided by gas in the past. The cost was expected to be about £20,000 per year.« |
