EESA Event: How Adelaide Saw the Light
Where: Engineers House, Chapman Hall, 11 Bagot Street, North Adelaide.
When: 5.45pm Wednesday 29th October 2008.
Refreshments from 5:00pm.
RSVP: By 23rd October. Refer to flyer for details.
This event is hosted by the Electric Energy Society of Australia.
Speaker: Richard Venus
This presentation tells the story of Adelaide’s first electric street light which was erected towards the close of the 19th century. This single lamp was to burn in solitary splendour until 1901.
Being a planned development rather than one which just evolved from tents and shanties, Adelaide looked like an established city from its very beginning. The citizens were also quick to learn of and demonstrate new technology from Europe and America. However, photographs of substantial stone and masonry buildings (quite a few of which survive, in whole or part, today) don’t show a clear picture of the infrastructure which was slower to develop.
Street lighting is a good example and the extraordinary Charles Todd (inducted into the SA Engineering Hall of Fame earlier this year) had a part to play, giving the first public demonstrations of electric lighting as early as 1867.
But lighting the streets of the Colony’s capital was to present a number of challenges in those early years, some of them technical and some of them political. These help turn the story of Adelaide’s first electric light into a ripping yarn of our engineering heritage which includes at least one explosion.
Photo: Adelaide lights up for the visit of the Duke of York in 1901.
Please watch the organiser’s website for changes to the above. If you find this event interesting you may certainly find many other EESA events interesting, so please keep an eye on their events schedule.