Hornsey Elec

Footnote 3 - History of the Port of London pre 1908 (http://www.pla.co.uk/Port-Trade/History-of-the-Port-of-London-pre-1908 ). Between 1700 and 1770 the commerce of the Port of London nearly doubled, and from 1770 to 1795 (only 25 years) it doubled again. (Sarah Murden, The Port of London in the 18th Century (https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/the-port-of-london-in-the-18th-century/)

 

Footnote 11 – Thomas W. Vasey (http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7567/1/7567_4632.PDF), The emergence of examinations for British shipmasters and mates, 1830 – 1850, citing Lucy Brown, The Board of Trade and the Free-Trade Movement Oxford, 1958.P175. Re Select Committee was 1843 Select Committee on Shipwrecks which led to examination to improve competency of shipmasters and mates

 

Footnote 15 – As detailed in a Memorandum of Agreement 13 Oct 1848 between Joseph Barker Chapman on behalf of the Firm of Messrs John Chapman & Co of 2 Leadenhall Street, London and the New Zealand Company in the presence of Frederick G. Tattershall; Tender for hire of ship to convey passengers and goods from London to the settlements of the New Zealand Company in New Zealand to sail 30 Oct 1848. ‘Mary’ A1 lying at London Docks – Master Thomas Grant Dawn Chambers, New Zealand Company Records. Research paper, published at www.nzpictures.co.nz

 

Footnote 16 – This Thomas (1798 - 1885) was EHC’s cousin through Aaron’s brother Edward, Aaron’s Brother

  

Footnote 25 – His oldest brother, Joseph Barker Chapman (1799 - 1873) was a merchant, rice mill owner and director of the London Dock Company. He lived at 2 Highbury Terrace, near to his father’s home, until his death. (House still standing – see on Google Street View). Joseph named his first son Edward Henry, raising the possibility of a particular closeness between the two brothers). Edward’s next brother John Chapman (1801-1816), died in Calcutta, aged 16. I assume that he had been following the family tradition of serving time at sea. His younger brother was William Robert Chapman (1806 – 1850). The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India reported the death of 'John, second son of Aaron Chapman, Esq' as occurring on 19 November 1816 on  board H.C. Ship Astell' (Vol. IV, 1817, p. 95). Astell was an East Indiaman ship (link to Wikipedia), not belonging to Chapman (link to Three Decks website). However, one of the officers on board was Alfred Chapman, probably Aaron’s cousin. The ship left England in 1815 and the fateful journey took it to first to Ceylon then on to Bengal/Calcutta. In 1813, it had been a ship of the line, seeing action in the 1812 war between Britain and the United States.

 The voyage of the Astell recorded in Charles Hardy, A Register of Ships, Employed in the Service of the Honorable the United East India Company, from the Year 1760 to 1819, 1820, Black, Kingsbury, Parbury and Allen

 

The older of the two sisters was Jane Mellar Chapman, She stayed also near to her father’s house at Highbury Grange and died there in childbirth in 1848. The younger sister was Ann (1804 – 1883).

 

Footnote 26 - R L Arrowsmith , Charterhouse Register 1769-1872 With Appendix of Non-Foundationers 1614-1769, Phillimore & Co Ltd, 1974

 

Footnote 27 - Ian Thomson, Charterhouse to Charnel House: The psycho-geography of Thomas Lovell Beddoes' London, Royal Literary Fund,  2015 https://www.rlf.org.uk/showcase/charterhouse-to-charnel-house/ - don’t publish url

 

Footnote 28 – Post Office Directory, 1826.

 

Footnote 29 - See Footnote 25.

 

Footnote 30 – Refers to a case of 1851, covered at length in John Scott, Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Common Pleas and in the Exchequer Chamber From 1856 ... [to 1865] · Volume 19, 1868, T. & J.W. Johnson & Company

 

Footnote 31 - Dictionary of Canadian Biography, accessed online at http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/benson_william_john_chapman_7E.html, on 26^th May 2022

 

Footnote 32 - Gilbert Buti , The European merchant , Digital Encyclopedia Of European History,  ISSN 2677-6588, published on 22/06/20. https://ehne.fr/en/node/12409

 

Footnote 33 - The Making of the English Middle Class, Business, Society and Family Life in London, Peter Earle, University of California Press, 1989

 

Footnote 34 – As listed in York Herald, 7 May 1864. The Post-Office Edinburgh & Leith directory 1853-54, showed Edward had been one of the company’s auditors since 1848.

 

Footnote 35 – Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 Mar, 2022, www.britannica.com

 

Footnote 36 – Chapman’s appointment as a JP is listed in the Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons Volume 33, 1842, but I have yet to track down the precise start and end dates of his service.

 

Magistrates’ courts hark back to the Anglo-Saxon moot court and the manorial court, but their official birth came in 1285, during the reign of Edward I, when ‘good and lawful men’ were commissioned to keep the King’s peace. From that point, and continuing today, Justices of the Peace have undertaken the majority of the judicial work carried out in England and Wales. (History of the judiciary, The Judicial Office, https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/history-of-the-judiciary/)

 

Footnote 37- His address in the document referred to in Footnote 36 id give as Highbury Grange. Whilst we k owe that this was a few years after he purchased Harringay House, it might be that the publication hadn’t been updated with Chapman’s new address and that he had previously lived at Highbury Grange.

 

Footnote 38 - Using the Income value / GDP per capita measurement on the Measuring Worth website.

 

Footnote 39 - Frederick Teague Cansick , A Collection of Curious and Interesting Epitaphs, Copied from the Monuments of Distinguished and Noted Characters in the Ancient Church and Burial Grounds of Saint Pancras, Middlesex, Volume 3, 1875.

 

Footnote 40. ­­­­This ship was the second ship name Chapman to have been in the Chapman Empire. The first ship Chapman had been built in 1777 and was sold in 1835. A short note about its career whilst in the Chapman stable is given in Footnote 8.

Footnote 48 - There is no evidence to support this supposition.

Footnote 49 - Sources for provisional committee membership by company:

1. Regent's Canal Railway, - Bradshaw's Railway Gazette, Vol 2, 1846
2. Warwick & Cheltenham Junction Railway - Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 20 March 1845
3. Coventry & Leicester Junction Railway - Coventry Standard, 23 May 1845
4. Thames Embankment Railway - Globe, 3 October 1845.
5. Cheltenham Railway - Cheltenham Examiner, 25 June 1845

 

Footnote 49 - William Quinn and John D. Turner, Boom and Bust A Global History of Financial Bubbles , pp. 58 – 76, Cambridge University Press, 2020, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108367677.004

 

Footnote 50 – G. Campbell & J.D.Turner,  Dispelling the Myth of the Naive Investor during the British Railway Mania, 1845–46, Business History Review, 86(1), 3-41, 2012 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680512000025

 

Footnote 51 - .  The Marquis of Salisbury against The Great Northern Railway Company, 1852, Court of the Queen’s Bench, 117 E.R. 1503 https://vlex.co.uk/vid/the-marquis-of-salisbury-802955749

 

Footnote 52 – Joan Schwitzter (ed), Lost Houses of Haringey, Haringey Community Information Service & Horney Historical Society, London, 1986

 

Footnote 53 – John H. Lloyd. Honorary Secretary of the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution (HLSI), The History, Topography and Antiquities of Highgate, p293, The Library Fund, London, 1888.

 

John Lloyd was born on 20th July 1830. Like his father, he was a wine merchant. He became a member of the HLSI in 1871 and was elected to the Management Committee in 1874. From 1900 until his death he was the HLSI's Vice-President.

His book 'History and Antiquities of Highgate' was written in 1888 for the HLSI's 50th anniversary.

 

There is no particular reason to doubt Lloyd, other than I have come against assertions by Victorian ‘antiquarians’ that had become cast in stone, but when investigated had no basis in fact.

 

Footnote 54 – “The Demise of Overend Gurney”, Bank of England, Quarterly Bulletin 2016 Q2.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2016/the-demise-of-overend-gurney.pdf?la=en&hash=04B001A02BD5ED7B35D4FB3CF1DDC233A1D271BD David Barclay Chapman took over management of the bank from his uncle Samuel Gurney after his death in 1856

 

Footnote 55 – From an advertisement in the London Evening Standard on 10 May 1839.

 

Footnote 56 - a discount house is a firm that specialises in trading, discounting, and negotiating bills of exchange or promissory notes. Also known as bill brokers, discount houses primarily operated in the United Kingdom, playing a key role in the financial system there until the mid-1990s.

 

Footnote 57 - I have an appointment at the Bank of England Archives, but the earliest I can be accommodated is six months hence!

 

Footnote 58 – The London Gazette, Issue 21152, Page 2945, 1850 and Morning Herald, Saturday 24 December 1853. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility over the local militia was removed. However, it was not until 1921 that they formally lost the right to call upon able-bodied men to fight when needed. More information at https://www.liverycommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Commission-for-Lieutenancy-2020.pdf

 

Footnote 59 - Clive Emsley, The English Magistracy 1700-1850, IAHCCJ Bulletin, No. 15, February 1992.

 

Footnote 60 – For a history of William Alexander and his family, see Harringay in Grey and Green, The Alexanders of Harringay House on Harringay Online.

 

Footnote 64 - The Rosanna Settlers: with Captain Herd on the coast of New Zealand 1826-7: including Thomas Shepherd’s Journal and his coastal views, the New Zealand Company of 1825, Published: 2002, via Wellington City Libraries Website, https://www.wcl.govt.nz/heritage/rosannachap3.html

  

Footnote 66 – House details and map from a lease for Highbury Park House between the heirs of Aaron Chapman and James Dewar, 1855. Original in Islington Local History Centre. Photo of plan reproduced with permission.

for almost half a century, Hornsey's electricity was generated and supplied by the Council (unlike in Wood Green & Tottenham whoo took their supply from the North Metropolitan Supply Company (formed as the North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Company in 1900 in Wood Green).

The birth of the electricity supply industry stemmed from Faraday’s work in the early 1830s when be found that electricity could be generated from mechanical power. During the following decades early forms of electric generators were developed.

In 1878, Joseph Swan demonstrated his incandescent light bulb in Newcastle and got a patent for his invention in 1880. That year, Cragside, a mansion near Newcastle, was the first house to be lit electrically, using Swan's 'electric lamps'. Edison also produced an incandescent lamp using similar scientific principles.

In 1881, the first public electricity generator in Britain, a water wheel driven system, was installed in Godalming, Surrey.

On 12 January 1882, Thomas Edison opened Holborn Viaduct power station, named the Edison Electric Light Station. It was the world's first coal-fired power station generating electricity for public use. When it 1889opened it generated enough power for all the lights in the district – just 1,000 lights. It was called a ‘thousand light machine’ (Clerkenwell Press April 15, 1882)

By the mid 1880s a number of other companies hade ben formed to exploit the fast-emerging technology. The Government began to fear that these companies would form into private monopolies exercise too much control and wouldn’t act in the public interest.

Accordingly, in 1882 the Electricity Lighting Act (the first public measure dealing with electricity supply) was introduced to empower the Board of Trade to manage the supply of electricity through the granting of licences to both private and public organisations. The act intended to favour supply of electricity through the 'municipal enterprise' of local authorities. It even gave local authorities the right to purchase after 21 years any private undertaking that was granted a licence.

Sixty-nine licences were granted in the following year of which 14 went to local authorities. But in the years that followed private enterprise felt that the 21-year period didn’t allow enough time for its investment to be recouped. So, interest waned. To sustain private investment, an 1888 Act extended the period to 42 years.

However, the two Acts still left local authorities in a strong position.

Competition from gas companies also stifled some investor interest in electricity. In addition to having the advantage of being significantly ahead in the development of supply infrastructure, some local authorities which owned gas companies are even reported to have hindered the growth of electricity companies in order to protect their gas businesses.

So, electricity was generated and supplied by a hotch-potch of private companies and municipal councils operating on a small-scale in a small market. About a third of supplies came from local authorities and the rest from small companies, though there were some amalgamations. Electricity was almost all used for lighting and low-power purposes and supplies for industrial use (and even domestic heating) were very limited.

As a first step towards rationalisation, in 1905 large power companies were authorised. There was only one in the London area (the North Metropolitan Power Supply Company). This was originally set up to supply power to a tramway network but obtained statutory authority to make bulk supplies to suppliers holding electric lighting orders and did so on a large scale. For example Hendon Urban District chose to buy bulk electricity from NorthMet rather than generating its own. Nearby Hornsey and Finchley, however, had their own power stations.

In this laissez-faire environment a huge range of systems were in operation and electricity prices varied enormously, usually because the efficiency of the tiny generating stations varied so much. For most people, electricity was prohibitively expensive. Keeping just five bulbs going for a day would cost a week's wages for the average person - and in 1920 only 6% of British homes were connected.

After WW1 the clamour for power-operated (rather than steam-powered) equipment in industry accelerated this process and the purchasing of bulk supplies by electricity distributors became very common. Increasingly, supply authorities found it was cheaper to buy a bulk supply from a more efficient neighbour and shut its own inefficient station down. However, compared to Europe, Britain’s electricity supply industry remained starkly inefficient.

By 1921 there were 80 electrical undertakings in Greater London operating 70 generating station sat 24 different voltages. 1919 electricity supply act enacted to co-ordinate electricity gen & supply. It provided for the formation of electricity districts and, where necessary, the establishment of joint electricity authorities, ‘to provide or secure the provision of a cheap and abundant supply of electricity’.Under the act, in London local LHCJEA estd Jul 1925 - one of several estd around country - to co-ordinate the many elec cos and, if necc assume control of generating plant to improve efficiency. The LHCJEA took over some generating plants. It also supplied electricity in bulk to a number of electricity generators who had difficult keeping their plant up to date, including to Hornsey from Nov 1929 ( 1935-36, Garcke's Manual of Electricity Supply cited in M A C Horne, London Area Power Supply)

In 1926, the Electricity Supply Act introduced the first effective national co-ordination. The Central Electricity Board was created to concentrate the generation of electricity in a limited number of power stations (the 122 most efficient power stations in the country) to be interconnected by a national grid.

Constructing the grid required the laying of 4,000 miles of transmission line and cable had to stretch across Britain. Economics meant the vast majority of it would be carried by pylons. It was largely completed by 1935.

The grid had its desired effect: by the start of the Second World War two thirds of homes were connected. Throughout the War, electricity continued to be provided by local companies.

Following the election of a Labour government in 1945, on 1st April 1948, the electrical industry was nationalised.

(In the early 20th Century, electricity companies sought to interest consumers in electric products beyond lighting. Some of these were obviously flawed - the electric tablecloth into which lamps could be directly plugged clearly didn't go well with a water spillage - but the real danger came from consumers trying to run many appliances from one socket, from trying to fix problems themselves and from un-insulated wires. The newspapers are full of cases of people electrocuting themselves.)

In 1883 the Metropolitan (Brush) Electric Light and Power Co. was authorized to supply electricity in Hornsey, starting in Highgate. In 1900 Hornsey U.D. opposed the North Metropolitan Electricity Supply Co. and decided to supply electricity itself. Under powers of 1898 the borough assumed responsibility in 1903 and built a generating station in Tottenham Lane.  (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol6/pp168-172)

Battle between Gas and electricity

Until 1903 Hornsey was lit by the Gas Light & Coke Company, the Hornsey Gas Company and the borough Council.

https://harringayonline.com/photo/hornsey-electricity-works-c1905

In 1903 Hornsey inaugurated its own electricity supply service, building a generating station on Tottenham Lane - Hornsey Power station opened 2 March 1903

The gas industry began to lose consumers to the Hornsey Electrical supply Board as established roads were connected to supply (initiated by written requests from individual residents or after builders had canvassed a road.

Users of electric light grew rapidly from 126 in 1903 to 1113 in 1907.

Electric light became a major selling point for houses and was associated with the better class of house

Healthy Hornsey, 1905 said “nearly every house built is wired for electricity, a large and growing number of householders are substituting the light for the gas that had previously darkened their ceilings and wallpapers” (Healthy Hornsey: official guide to the borough. Edited by W. H. Wiltshire, etc. With map 1 Jan. 1906 by Walker Henry Wiltshire (Author)

The Hornsey Electrical Supply Board offered premiums to builders who would wire houses for electivity rather than pipe them for gas. The Board put on local exhibitions of electrical fittings, lamps and appliances and a hire-purchase system was launched to increase the number of consumers.

The following is a copy of an advertisement that the Hornsey Corporation Electric Light Department are parading through the streets by means of six sandwich-board men : " In spring instal electric light. Results : Decoration expenses lowered ; clean house ; convenient and economical lighting ; healthy atmosphere. Particulars : Electrical Works, Tottenham Lane, Hornsey, N." On the other side, these words appeared : " Instal electric light when spring cleaning." (The journal of gas lighting, water supply & sanitary improvement, 1909 Month NK)

However, even by 1914 the majority of houses in London still had neither gas nor electricity. C. H. Rolph records how to a policeman’s family in Stroud Green in 1910, gas was still a luxury and that even then many households used naked flames rather than mantles
(C.H. Rolph, London Particulars: Memories of an Edwardian Boyhood, OUP 1982)

Writing of his stay in Finsbury Park between 1906 and 1910, Rolph wrote “Electirc light was still unknown in the ordinary houses – and even our big school was gaslit. Therefore a used electric lightbulb was a rare sight among us: indeed among the older boys at school it was worth six cigarette cards at the rate of exchange prevailing.” (Rolph) With bulbs like those in the example of 1910, below, who can blame them!

1910 light bulb (Image: Science Museum)

Hornsey Power station was extended between 1923 and 1927 and sub-stations were opened at Muswell Hill c. 1920 and Highgate in 1924. After 1936, when a change from direct to alternating current began, six new sub-stations were built.  The borough co-operated with the Central Electricity Generating Board from c. 1931  https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol6/pp168-172 (or 1929 according to Garke - see above)

In 1938, Town Hall architect, Uren adapted the former telephone exchange om the north of the town hall square into showrooms for Hornsey’s municipal electricity department.

Ayers Ayres relief, representing – appropriately enough – the Spirit of Electricity ((A. J Ayres 'Prometheus', 1936)).

Arthur James John Ayres, 1902-1985, Active: 1929 - 1952
http://www.speel.me.uk/sculptlondon/hornsey.htm

Hornsey Power Station closed 10 Nov 1944 - bombed by V2 and closed. Remains of building demolished in 1960s but substation on site, apparently under construction in 1964. Former battery room became CEGB Radiological laboratory in 1964.

The Eastern Electricity Board (EEB) was formed in 1948 as part of the nationalisation of the electricity industry by the Electricity Act 1947. The board was responsible for the purchase of electricity from the electricity generator (the Central Electricity Generating Board from 1958) and its distribution and sale of electricity to customers.