Of the CAMDEN HISTORY SOCIETY No 197 May 2003 the Archaeology
No 195 of the CAMDEN HISTORY SOCIETY Jan 2003 the Institution Cottage, Swains Lane, tucked behind Lighting up Camden the Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution, still Thurs. 16 January, 7.30pm sporting a ceiling gas lamp. Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church (in the Church itself) As it happens, two of the old component parts of 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2 Camden were at the forefront of municipal supply of (Bottom end of Gower Street) electricity - both were vestries which had been very dissatisfied with the operations of the various private We now take lighting, public and domestic, for granted. gas companies. Enabled by Act of Parliament to set up It is difficult to imagine our streets at night lit only by their own generating stations, St Pancras was the first oil or gas lamps and without the aid of shop window in the London field, obtaining an Electric Lighting illumination and the generally brighter night sky that Order in 1883, and Hampstead was not far behind. we have today in London. Electricity transformed our The first experiments by St Pancras consisted of arc neighbourhoods and made them safer, but the enor- lights placed centrally along the centre of Tottenham mity of the task may be imagined. Court Road, and a large stretch of Euston Road. Electricity also made a vast difference in lighting at The story of the development of electrical supply in home, where gas or oil supplies were supplemented Camden is the subject of our January talk, to be given by candles. A visit to Sir John Soane's Museum on by Dr Brian Bowers.
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