City of London Electric Lighting Co
of Love Lane, Sumner Street, Southwark
1890 Founded by J. B. Braithwaite, pioneer in the electric supply industry.
1891 February: the City of London Electric Lighting (Pioneer) Company Ltd was established to carry out preliminary works in the Eastern and Central districts.
1891 Public company incorporated as City of London Electric Lighting Company Ltd to acquire the works carried out by the City of London Electric Lighting (Pioneer) Company Ltd[1]; the company divided its business into 3 areas - the Laing, Wharton and Down Construction Syndicate had been granted a provisional order for the Eastern area; Brush Electrical Engineering Co had been granted orders for the Central and Western areas.
1891 The Company operated Bankside Power Station from 1891 and supplied an area of 1.25 square miles covering the City of London and the parishes of Christchurch and Saint Saviour in Southwark.
1894 'The Explosion in the City.—
A Board of Trade inquiry
has sat two days this week, and is again sitting to-day,
to investigate the conditions of the explosion which took
place on the 10th inst. From the evidence it appears
that a brougham was being driven into Budge-row from
Cannon-street, when the mare fell down and rolled over
to its side, dying in a few minutes. The driver alighted
to the wet wood pavement, and received a severe
electric shock. Bystanders who went to the assistance of
the animal also received shocks, even before they touched
the horse. Immediately afterwards two explosions occurred, blowing off the lids of junction-boxes, belonging
to the City of London Electric Lighting Company, in
Budge-row and Walbrook.
After evidence had been
given of these facts, Mr. David Cook (2), manager and
engineer to the electric company, explained that two cables
were being tested previously to being put to work. One
of these was lying with its inner conductor against the
lead covering of a third cable, and therefore the inner of
the whole high-pressure system was put to earth, throwing an unusual strain upon the insulation of the primary
mains. They should, however, have withstood it perfectly, but in the junction-box at the corner of Cannon-street and Budge-row, the rubber insulation had been abraded by men working in the box at drawing in low-pressure and other cables. An arc was, therefore, formed to earth, and an explosion followed. The electric company assert it resulted from leakage of gas into their
conduit, while the gas company deny that any leakage
exists at that point. A chemist, however, found 12
per cent, of coal gas in one box, and none in the other.
Mr. Cook attributed the accident to a
mistake in coupling up the mains at the central
station in Bankside, the Milk-street cable being put into
the Watling-street terminals, while the Watling-street
cable was made alive by current from the transformer
station while in contact with earth. Evidently there
were two weak spots in the system—the inner conductor
to earth, when it ought to have been insulated, and the
abraded rubber coating. The accident to the horse shows
how susceptible the equine race is to electric shock. Apparently it only bridged a few feet of wet wood pavement,
offering a parallel circuit for some portion of the current,
and yet the result was fatal to it. One of the witnesses
testified to receiving a shock when both feet were on the
ground, and to escaping by hopping away on one foot.'[2]
c.1895 Charles Merz went to work at the Bankside station of the City of London Electric Lighting Company as assistant to Aubrey Llewellyn Coventry Fell, superintending contracts for the British Thomson-Houston Co, of which company his father was at that time a director.
1912 A correspondent to The Times identified the City of London Electric Supply Co's Bankside station near Southwark Bridge as one of 6 which should be considered for bulk supply in an integrated London network; it generated 400 V DC, high tension, single and two phase (sic)[3].
1913 Six London companies placed a large advert about potential uses of electricity in the home and office - in the drawing room, in the dining room, in the bedroom, for cooking and for vacuum cleaning[4]
1925 Under the London Electricity Act 1925, interconnections were made to co-ordinate generating resources between the Company and the County of London Electric Supply Co Limited, South London Electric Supply Corporation Limited and South Metropolitan Electric Light and Power Co Limited
1948 Nationalised[5]