Publications
Hastings Early Power Supply, by Brian Lawes, published 1998 in Sussex Industrial History (issue no. 28, article, pp.33-39, ISSN: 0263-5151) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506527] Download PDF
Abstract:Although today electricity is important in our everyday life, in the 1870s gas was the source of both light and heat. To have a commercial future electricity needed to offer advantages over gas. When the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy produced electric arcs that gave off light, electricity was seen to have a future. A lot of development was undertaken in the 1840s when a number of incandescent lamps were patented. Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was a leading chemist, electrical engineer and inventor. In 1860, he invented an electric lamp using a carbon filament in an evacuated glass bulb. The American inventor Thomas Alva Edison produced his carbon-filament lamp in 1879. The American pioneer in electrical engineering, Charles Francis Brush (1849-1929), produced the first commercially successful arc lamp in 1878. During the following years various arc lamps were introduced.
The first practical arc lamp was installed in the lighthouse at Dungeness, in 1862. Towns along the East Sussex coast must have realised the potential of electric lighting by noting this brilliant new light source a few miles to the East.
The first practical arc lamp was installed in the lighthouse at Dungeness, in 1862. Towns along the East Sussex coast must have realised the potential of electric lighting by noting this brilliant new light source a few miles to the East.
Twittens, Passages and Steps. An illustrated guide to exploring old Hastings, by Brian Lawes, published 2010 (20 pp., Old Hastings Presrvation Society) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/501549] & Old Hastings Prervation Society