1!U2] on Electricity Siqyply : Past, Present and Future. 437 



ill 1SS8, the London Electric Supply Corporation, Limited, was 

 formed witli a capital of £1.000,000 sterling, and what were then 

 considered as immense works were started upon as far away as Dept- 

 ford, six miles from the centre of London, the scheme being to transmit 

 the electricity from where land, coal, labour, and water for condensing 

 could be cheaply obtained, at a pressure of no less than 10,000 volts, 

 with suitable sub-stations where it could be transformed and thence 

 distributed at lower pressures. The great courage shown by those 

 responsible for the venture was deserving of a better fate — but alas 

 for the uncertainty of human endeavours ! While the working of 

 the station at Deptford was still in its inception, the plant at the 

 Grosvenor Gallery became ignited by a short circuit and was burnt 

 out ; while the London Electric Supply Corporation soon afterwards 

 went into the hands of a receiver, leaving unfinished, and never to 

 l»e finished, the 10,000 horse-power sets of dynamo and engine which 

 ]\Ir. Ferranti's genius had dared to devise. 



Though so very unsuccessful financially at its start, there can 

 be no question as to the enormous influence that the Deptford 

 undertaking had on the history of electricity supply, not only in 

 London or in this country, but throughout the world. Here, at 

 length, was an electricity supply proposition on a scale similar to 

 those of the great undertakings that furnish gas to the Metropolis, 

 with generating plant and means of distribution designed for the 

 sale of electricity over a large portion of London. The more 

 cautious procedure adopted by other concerns which sprang up about 

 the same time and later was no doubt more successful from a 

 business point of view, but the impulse given by this ambitious 

 scheme became manifest from the great competition that was shown 

 for provisional orders for different parts of London, leading to the 

 pulilic inquiry that was held by the Board of Trade immediately 

 after the passing of the amended Electric Lighting Act of 1888, in 

 which the period of twenty-one years, after which the undertaking 

 was subject to purchase without any allowance for goodwill, was 

 extended to forty-two years. 



It is worthy of note that the London Electric Supply Corpora- 

 tion has now some time ago successfully emerged from its period of 

 financial distress, while Mr. Ferranti, though, as has been shown, he 

 was one of the pioneers of electricity supply, still remains with us as 

 one of the most vigorous intellects in the electrical industry, and one 

 who, as President of the Listitution of Electrical Engineers, is even 

 now dreaming fresh dreams of higher things and lower costs as far as 

 electricity supply is concerned. 



During the period with which we have been dealing, so far as the 

 public were then aware, the chief improvements that had been effected 

 in connection with machinery for electricity supply had reference to 

 the dynamos which generated the current, the batteries that stored it, 

 the cables and switches and other apparatus that distributed it and 



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