Hove Electric Lighting Co
of Davigdor Road, Hove, Brighton
1891 Mr Crompton produced a detailed report concerning the proposed Hove electricity works. He advocated the use of the 3-wire low-pressure system. The electricity would be supplied at a constant pressure with accumulators as an auxiliary source of supply. The mains were to consist of culverts in which bare copper conductors rested on glass insulators and. only if there was insufficient room for culverts, would continuously insulated cable be employed. These cables, insulated with rubber of the highest quality, would be enclosed in wrought-iron pipes.
As to the generating station Mr Crompton considered the ideal site for it was north-east of the Cromwell Road / Holland Road junction.
Crompton & Co were chosen as contractors because they were the only firm who had accepted the scheme adopted by the Commissioners but there was difficulty in raising sufficient finance to form the Hove Electric Light Company and this was put down to the state of the money market. Crompton raised finance from amongst his acquaintances and the laying of mains in the central area started.
Some of the streets were already being supplied with electricity from a rival company, the Brighton and Hove Electric Co Ltd. This company had already applied for a Provisional Order in 1889 without success. In 1892 they too were agitating to lay mains as their business had greatly increased and their directors were ‘continually being asked to extend their operations in Hove’.
1892 The company was registered August 4, 1892, for the purpose of taking over for a period of 42 years the powers and duties comprised in the Hove Electric Lighting Order of 1890. The town council has the power, after the expiration of 21 years (from December, 1892), to purchase the undertaking and to pay to the company the capital expenditure, with such sum added as shall, with the profits previously gained, make up a total cumulative dividend of 7 per cent, per annum, or to pay for the undertaking by valuation as a going concern, and not subject to the restrictions in the second section of the Electric Lighting Act of 1888.
Hove Electricity Generating Station was in Davigdor Road, Hove[1]
1914 Hove Council ... had recently acquired the electricity undertaking.[2]
See Also
Sources of Information
- [2] Brighton, Hove and Portslade.