Handbook of Birmingham: Prepared for the Members of the British Association, 1886British Association for the Advancement of Science
History
Handbook of Birmingham: Prepared for the Members of the British Association, 1886
British Association for the Advancement of Science
Birmingham (England); Natural history -- England -- Birmingham
In the year 1882, Messrs. Elwell, Parker, and Co., commenced
electrical business in Wolverhampton, with secondary or storage
batteries constructed upon a modification of the Planté method of
manufacture. Shortly afterwards, the same firm began to make dynamos
for charging their batteries, since which time the output has
increased, and now amounts to a total of about 500 dynamos, besides
several thousands of storage cells, the latter being now made under
the joint Patents of the Wolverhampton Firm, and the Electrical Power
Storage Co., Limited, of London. The London Stock Exchange, Lloyd’s
Shipping Offices, the Manchester Art Gallery, Lord Shrewsbury’s seat at
Ingestre Hall, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Co., the Blackpool
Electric Tramway, the Giants’ Causeway Electric Tramway, the Cannock
Chase Colliery, the Grosvenor Gallery and many other establishments are
lighted or worked by means of dynamos manufactured by the Wolverhampton
firm.
Amongst installations set up in Birmingham under the writer’s
superintendence may be mentioned the Theatre Royal, in New Street,
and the Prince of Wales Theatre, in Broad Street, in each of which
the plant consists of a 16-H.P. Otto silent gas engine, driving a 300
light Ferranti alternate current dynamo with a Siemen’s exciter, and
with appliances at the prompt side for lowering or turning out the
light at will. 200 lights are run very brightly with an expenditure
of about 800 cubic feet of gas per hour. A similar number of ordinary
gas burners would require from 1,000 to 1,200 cubic feet of gas per
hour. The Birmingham Liberal Club, in Congreve Street, another example,
has 160 lamps which are worked from a 10-unit compound dynamo, made
by Messrs. Crompton and Co., of Chelmsford, the motive power being a
12-H.P. compound steam engine, by Messrs. Marshall, Sons, and Co.,
Limited, of Gainsborough. This machine is an excellent specimen of a
self-regulating dynamo, the commutator not having been touched with
anything coarser than well-worn emery cloth since February last, its
surface presenting a highly-polished appearance. No storage cells are
used, the lighting being derived directly from the machine.
In the suburbs, the house of Mr. Mitchell, Hagley Road, Edgbaston, has
about 40 lights, and is worked from a 2-H.P. Otto silent gas engine,
and a 2-unit Crompton shunt-wound dynamo, charging 24 storage cells of
the E.P.S. (Electrical Power Storage Co.’s) type.
The writer’s house, 7, Clarendon Road, Edgbaston, is also electrically
lighted by 24 E.P.S. cells, charged by a 30-light Chamberlain & Hookham
dynamo, worked from a ½-H.P. Otto gas engine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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