Seeing the light

The Industrial Revolution was an explosion of new inventions and innovations that provoked widespread industrial change, transforming Britain from a predominantly agricultural country to an industrial one. In an age of imperial expansion, new sources of prosperity and ceaseless manufacturing, Victorian social reformers called for better public sanitation and street lighting as the population of its towns and cities multiplied rapidly.

The first electric street lighting in London appeared as a Siemens Brothers' experiment in 1881. Up until the 1860s, batteries were the only source of electricity, and although many dynamos and generators were to emerge in this decade they were not reliable. But in 1870 the Gramme dynamo was introduced, which was capable of supplying electricity for indefinite periods and making arc lighting possible for the first time. Messrs Siemens were given permission to erect three arc street lamps in the area around the London Exchange. Each pole stood 80 feet high and had its own powerful dynamo. Two smaller lights also illuminated the front of the exchange itself.

Gas v electric

The project was heralded a success but electric lighting was not without its opponents. Gas companies and those they backed in parliament had an obvious interest in maintaining the status quo, but other critics were simply frightened of this new power source, expressing unease at the 'wholly uncertain and experimental nature of electric science at present'.

On 23 August 1887 the matter of electrifying the British and South Kensington Museums so that the working classes could visit them at night was debated in the Commons. The secretary to the Treasury said: 'I would remind the honourable gentleman that electric lighting would not get rid of the necessity of gas lighting altogether, because I know of no instance of persons being willing to trust valuable collections to the dangers which might arise from lighting the place where they are deposited solely by electricity'¦'

Mr Molloy replied that 'the museum in Jermyn Street is lighted by electricity; the authorities have no difficulty in lighting that museum and opening it at night; nearly every club is lighted by electricity. There is no gas used in them although the old chandeliers are there; there is simply a wire running down the room'¦'

During the same debate, the secretary to the Treasury went on to oppose the installation of electric lights in the National Gallery. The member for Galway North, Colonel Nolan, expressed the view that, in terms of protecting the paintings, electric lighting was a far better proposition than gas: 'I should like the honourable gentleman the secretary to the Treasury to say exactly what is the nature of the injury which the trustees of the National Gallery apprehend might result from lighting the place by electricity. In the case of electricity, you can have no escape of gas, which we know is injurious to pictures. We have not the same heat, nor the same atmospheric conditions, with electricity as we have with gas.'

In with the new

Despite some resistance to technological change, the novel mode of illumination made tremendous progress throughout the 1880s and began to replace gas lighting. Such proliferation resulted in a greater demand for electricity supply, and central distribution was thought necessary and the first 'power station' opened in England at London's Holborn Viaduct. In the same year, an Act of Parliament was passed to facilitate and regulate the supply of electricity for lighting and other purposes. The Electric Lighting Act 1882 gave power to the Board of Trade to license any local authority, company or person to supply electricity.

The first ever electricity offence to be created was that of stealing power. Section 23 of the Electric Lighting Act made 'malicious or fraudulent' abstraction an offence of simply larceny and 'punishable accordingly'. There was a tougher penalty under section 22 for unlawfully and maliciously cutting or injuring an electric line or cutting off a supply; with persons found guilty of this imprisoned for terms of up to five years, or for two years with hard labour.

The first electricity supply statute was comprehensive, so much so that subsequent Acts changed little over the next 100 years. By the end of Victoria's reign electric lighting had really taken, marking when technology and society transformed Britain into the modern model we recognise today.