The incandescent or glow electric lamp, first made its appearance upon a large scale in Birmingham, in the year 1882, when the Birmingham Town Hall was successfully illuminated for the Triennial Musical Festival, by Messrs. R. W. Winfield and Co., who had allied themselves with Messrs. R. E. Crompton and Co., of Chelmsford, for electric lighting undertakings. This installation was established under the writer’s superintendence, and consisted of 440 Swan glow lamps, suspended from ornamental pendants placed around the walls of the Hall, a chamber having very nearly the proportions of a double cube, and measuring 165ft. × 65ft. × 65ft. high. Various lamps in other rooms raised the number to 500. Cables were laid underneath the streets, for a distance of about a quarter of a mile, to the works of Messrs. Winfield and Co., in Cambridge street, where nine Bürgin Dynamos, separately excited by two similar machines, were employed to generate the electricity, the motive power being the old rolling mill engine, from the flywheel of which a belt conveyed the motion to the electric machinery. This wheel, being 25ft. diameter, weighing about 25 tons, and revolving 50 times per minute, afforded a source of motion, the steadiness of which left nothing to be desired. The marked difference of temperature in the Town Hall during the evening performances, as compared with the previous use of gas--70° at the ceiling instead of 110°--was fully appreciated by the large audiences of that festival. Subsequently the number of lamps was increased to upwards of 600, by the addition of two pendants. The same means of illumination were used for the 1885 Triennial Festival, as well as on many occasions of concerts, etc. The whole plant still remains the property of Messrs. Winfield and Co. Upon somewhat similar lines the same firm fitted up the Leeds Town Hall, for the Festival of 1883, where, however, the whole of the light was derived from pendants suspended from the ceiling by steel wire ropes. The machinery in this case was also situated about a quarter of a mile from the Town Hall.