Difficulties of interconnection, differences in AC frequencies, and the need for coal conservation by the use of large-scale plant became major issues in World War I when electricity usage nearly doubled. The Electricity (Supply) Act 1919 created a new organisation, the Electricity Commissioners, to replace the role of the Board of Trade. While the initial proposals for national restructuring were thwarted, the Electricity Commissioners managed to develop plans for more efficient and lower-cost generation and to encourage the expansion of service areas to supply small towns and rural villages. Table 3 lists the statutory supply undertakings in 1925/26. The non-statutory undertakings noted earlier in Table 2 generally continued in existence until acquired by new supply companies or, as in the case of the Bourne End company, were “legitimized” by Special Order. This took place in 1923 when Bourne End became part of a larger utility—Cookham & District Electric Supply Co.[30] In the local authority sector, Portsmouth extended its supply area in 1922 to include the Havant and Warblington UD and Havant RD and in 1925 the Rural Districts of Catherington and Fareham. Southampton also extended northwards to cover the Eastleigh and Bishopstoke UD. New municipal undertakings formed after 1919 included Marlborough, initially supplied by a power house owned by Marlborough College.[31] In Chichester and Dorchester earlier companies were bought out by the corporations.
Table 3 Southern Area: Electricity Supply Undertakings 1925/26.
Ten new companies, mostly serving towns and suburbs, were added in the early 1920s. These included Malmesbury (1924), Ringwood (1925), Sherborne (1923), Tetbury (1924), Wantage (1924), Wareham (1923), Warminster (1923), West Wilts (1925), Yeovil (1923) and Yorktown & Blackwater (1921).
The creation of the West Wilts Electric Light & Power Company in 1924/25, with a bulk supply from Bath, was the result of 20 years of effort by James Herbert Edwards (1872-1956) and his two companies. Edwards & Armstrong Ltd established in 1899 first in Bristol, later in Stroud, was an electrical contractor. Early work included the installation of electric lighting in Cardiff City Hall and Colston Hall, Bristol. Western Electric Distributing Co. Ltd, registered in 1903, promoted electricity systems in small towns. Some operated under Electric Lighting Orders while others were non-statutory. By 1925/26 Western Electric controlled 14 undertakings from its offices at Cainscross, Stroud. Eleven were in the Southern region—at Abingdon, Andover Chippenham, Cirencester, Malmesbury, Melksham, Stroud, Tetbury, Trowbridge, Wantage and Warminster; the other three at Ledbury, Leominster and Ruthin were more distant. Edwards was a major promoter of Wessex Electricity Ltd, incorporated in 1927. Many of his companies became part of this large organisation. His work in electrification, especially in western Wiltshire, deserves broader recognition and detailed exploration.[32]
The 59 undertakings in 1925/26 operated a variety of systems. DC was the most common, with 35 systems, and had been popular in the early years of electrification. With an economic operating radius of 1-1.5 miles from the generating plant, DC was suitable only for city centres or small towns and villages. The 24 undertakings with AC systems were further subdivided by different frequencies. All but three worked at 50 cycles (Hz) a frequency that had become a national standard after 1903. The exceptions were Ealing Corporation at 40Hz, parts of the Metropolitan Electric Supply Co. at 60Hz, and the Bournemouth & Poole Co. at 100Hz.
The data on generating capacity show that all but six of the 59 undertakings generated their own power. Most power stations had capacities of less than 1,000kW; only five were larger than 5,000kW. Steam turbines were dominant in all the larger stations and varied in size from a 6,000kW unit in Southampton to one of 300kW in Weymouth. Portsmouth was one of the early users of a Parsons turbine (installed in 1894).[33] Older reciprocating steam engines were common but Aldershot Corporation was the only power station in the region wholly dependent on this type of prime mover. Gas engines were common in many smaller stations while diesel engines were becoming very significant for supplementary power.
Most of the Middlesex area depended on bulk supplies or direct sales by the Metropolitan Electric Supply Co. with power generated at its Willesden station (capacity 49,000 kW in 1925/26). Two proposals for large power stations could, if they had been approved, have made the area a major centre of electricity generation.
The first proposal in January 1926, by the newly established London Power Co., was for powers to acquire 46 acres of land in Heston & Isleworth UD. Since the site probably included a section of Syon Park, there were strong objections to the Bill which was rejected by the House of Commons. Subsequent plans by the London Power Co. for a station with an ultimate capacity of 450,000kW at Battersea were approved in 1927.
The second proposal, in August 1926, was for a 100,000kW station, to be extended to 300,000kW and located on part of Dukes Meadow, Chiswick. It was proposed by the London and Home Counties Joint Electricity Authority as part of its plans for reorganizing electricity supply in London. There was strong objection to the proposal which would have destroyed much of the open space in this section of the River Thames. Plans for the South East England grid scheme being prepared at the time did not include a Chiswick power station, so this proposal “was not proceeded with.”[34]
Statistics on electricity consumption per head of population reveal major contrasts among electricity undertakings. Only five places—Basingstoke, Frome, Southampton, Swindon and Uxbridge—exceeded 100.0kWh per person. Some places which had electricity supply for 20 years remained at around 20.0kWh per capita. Each place had a distinctive market profile reflecting the local economic and social geography. Southampton had a well-balanced profile in 1925/26, consisting of 31.1 percent of sales in the lighting segment, 3.3 percent in public lighting, 16.8 percent for the tramways and 48.8 percent in power. The Bournemouth & Poole Company, in contrast, had 65.7 percent in lighting, 0.4 percent in public lighting, 16.5 percent in traction[35] and only 27.4 percent in power. Two towns, Basingstoke and Bognor Regis with similar-sized populations (around 14,000) had very different market profiles. Bognor was dominated by lighting at 63.8 percent while in Basingstoke the power segment accounted for 70 percent of total sales. Annual per capita sales in Bognor amounted to only 32.7kWh while sales in Basingstoke had reached 106.9kWh per person.
Table 4 Southern Area: Electricity Supply Undertakings 1935/36.
Electrification and extension of supply areas were given a new impetus following the Weir Report (1925),[36] the Electricity (Supply) Act 1926 and the formation of the Central Electricity Board in 1927. Even before the detailed regional plans for the National Grid were announced, there was a quickening of interest in the formation of new companies and applications for Special Orders. Over the next decade almost all the empty areas of the map were covered by new or extended supply areas.
New local authority undertakings after 1925/26 (Table 4) were Calne Borough (population 3,463 in 1931) in 1926 and Portland Urban District (population 12,019) in 1930. Bulk supply in Calne was provided by the Harris bacon factory and Portland drew its supply from Weymouth. Oxford Corporation bought out the private company system in 1931, Reading followed in 1934, and Brentwood and Chiswick acquired the Chiswick company in 1935. None of these local authorities was able to extend their supply areas by this time. Oxford’s acquisition only covered the area of the city defined in 1889; the later boundary extension of 1928 remained with the Oxford Electric Company.[37] The very profitable sales to Morris Motors in Cowley continued with the company.
Fourteen new companies were authorised by Special Orders granted between 1924 and 1928. Some such as Downton served only a parish; others like the West Hampshire company covered an extensive area. Most were new formations but some such as Burford were well established non-statutory companies now “legitimised.”
The new companies were as follows:
1. *Alton (1925)
2. Andover (1924)
3. Amesbury (1925)
4. *Burford (1927)
5. Downton (1929)
6. Midhurst (1927)
7. *Milton & Barton-on-Sea (1928)
8. *Petersfield (1926)
9. Thames Valley (1926)
10. Tisbury (1928)
11. *West Hampshire (1928)
12. *Whitchurch (Hants) (1928)
13. *Wilton (1928)
14. *Woodstock (1928)
The companies marked * all survived to nationalisation; the others were taken over by Wessex Electricity or the Mid Southern Utility Co.
Wessex Electricity, created by special Act in 1927, was a very different type of company with powers of bulk supply over a very wide area (over 1,000 square miles) and with a 50-year franchise. By 1931 the company had begun developing a network of 11kv lines across a broad swathe of territory.[38]
Transmission lines supported by tall steel towers became the most visible effect of state intervention as they appeared In the landscape during the early 1930s. Construction of a national grid was authorised by the Electricity (Supply) Act 1926. Plans were prepared by the Electricity Commissioners and consulting engineers for implementation by the Central Electricity Board.[39] The South West England and South Wales Electricity Scheme was adopted by the CEB in June 1930, tenders were advertised, contracts made, and construction work began.
In the Southern region, a series of 132kv lines were built: from Reading to Portsmouth, Southampton and Dorchester to Exeter in the south, and from Reading to Oxford, Swindon and Bristol in the north (Figure 3). The national grid was designed to connect “selected” power stations. These were generally the largest and most efficient generating plants which also had some potential for expansion. Three stations in the South were on the selected list in 1934: Portsmouth, Southampton and Swindon. A proposed large power station at Fawley was deferred. Later “special agreement stations” were added to include Basingstoke, Kingston (Isle of Wight), Oxford, Reading and Weymouth.
Building the transmission lines could be controversial as he CEB found in the New Forest. The original proposal had been to construct the line through the centre of the Forest but this had to be modified by 1931 to take a northern route avoiding most of the land within the Forest limits. In spite of strong opposition from many groups voiced at a public inquiry at Winchester in September 1932, followed by months of indecision by the government, the 132kv line was built.[40] A celebration of the erection of the last pylon was held at Braemore on 5 September 1933.[41]
When trading began on 1 January 1935, the grid had added a new layer to the complex of undertakings which operated the electricity supply system. The Bristol grid control office of the CEB now managed the flows of power on the transmission lines and directed the hour-to-hour operation of the selected power stations. These stations, such as the one in Portsmouth, remained in the ownership and management of the Corporation but the daily operation was now directed from Bristol. Planning for the future became increasingly centralised, particularly from London.
Two examples illustrate the direct effects of the new grid supply in the region. In June 1935 the Bournemouth & Poole Co. closed its Bourne Valley station and purchased all its supply from the Central Electricity Board (about 41m kWh in the first year). The power station (11,000kW capacity) which had generated at 100Hz was obsolete and the limited site had no potential for any new power development. In the Portsmouth area, grid supply facilitated the electrification of the Woking-Guildford-Portsmouth line of the Southern Railway opened for public service on 4 July 1937. Power for the line south from Liss was drawn from the CEB Wymering transformer station and converted to DC at seven trackside substations.[42]
Table 4 and Figure 3 show the situation in 1935/36 when 62 undertakings were in operation. Over the previous decade many changes had taken place. One significant shift was the decline in the number of wholly DC systems (from 35 to 6) while the AC systems increased from 10 to 30. The number of combined AC/DC systems had expanded from 14 to 26. Frequency standardisation at 50Hz was now complete. The cost of converting Ealing and the Bournemouth & Poole undertakings was one of the expenses of the national grid.
Interconnection between undertakings, which had been minimal in the early 1920s, was now normal practice. The Electricity Commissioners, as part of their mandate for reorganising generation, had encouraged bulk supply agreements between neighbouring undertakings so that small stations could be closed. Such agreements would be a benefit for the later grid system, reducing the number of transformer stations. Portsmouth Corporation made agreements with Chichester and Fareham (1924/25), Midhurst and Petersfield (1928/29). Southampton made agreements to supply the West Hampshire Company (1928/29) and Winchester (1929/30).[43] In the late 1920s the Electricity Commissioners supported plans of the Isle of Wight Company to reorganize supply in the island from a new power station at East Cowes.[44] As a result of these arrangements, many smaller systems were linked up with a large power station and old, inefficient plant such as Winchester could be shut down.[45] By 1935/36 only a few of the more isolated places such as Amesbury and Chipping Norton were still generating all their requirements. Most places which had retained capacity were taking bulk supply from elsewhere. Heston & Isleworth UD which had generated 88 percent of its requirements in 1925/26 now generated only 2 percent, a figure covering peak seasonal demands.
Generating technology emphasised economies of scale with larger units. Southampton had a turbine unit of 15,000kW and the Portsmouth station had two 10,000kW machines. New power stations brought major reductions in coal consumption. In the Isle of Wight Cowes station consumed only 1.91 lbs of coal for each kilowatt hour generated compared with 4.28 lbs at Newport and 6.09 lbs at Ventnor ten years earlier. Hydraulic power on the River Avon, with generation at Salisbury (30kW), Downton (85kW) and Ringwood (70kW), made a small contribution to local electricity supply.
Rationalisation of generation and interconnections of undertakings all contributed to reducing the cost of electricity. Other factors such as the growth of radio broadcasting and lower prices for small appliances helped to boost electricity consumption. By 1935/36 there were 31 places in the region with per capita consumption levels above 100kWh, ranging from the Oxford Electric Co. at 425.3kWh (the effect of sales to Morris Motors) to the small Downton undertaking at 103.7kWh. Places with little industrial load still tended to lag behind.
The growth of electrification, especially in the lighting segment, may be illustrated by the case of Portsmouth. Total electricity sales grew from 12.3m kWh in 1925/26 to 66.88m kWh a decade later. The lighting segment which included domestic uses expanded from 7.59m kWh to 48.89m kWh. There was a corresponding increase in the number of consumers from 16,716 to 65,809. Over the decade per capita consumption in Portsmouth rose from 41.9kWh to 212.6kWh.[46]
Table 5 Southern Area: Corporate Structure of Electricity Holding Companies 1934/35.
Many features of the “electric revolution” showed in the western suburbs of London. The population of Heston & Isleworth doubled between 1925/26 and 1935/36 while electricity sales rose from 3.02m kWh to 39.’22m kWh. New prestige factories[47] especially along the Great West Road created a very strong demand for power, sales of which grew from 16.0m kWh to 23.84m kWh.AS a result of this industrial demand, per capita consumption in the borough rose from 64.8kWh in 1925/26 to 404.4kWh ten years later.
While the creation of new areas appeared to be making an even more fragmented map, much of the new development was controlled by holding companies which provided a new form of integration. Figure 4 and Table 5 show the situation in 1934/35 when several organisations had a dominant position.
Edmundson’s Electricity Corporation which had established several local undertakings by 1912 was revived by an American takeover in 1928 and began a series of new acquisitions including Wessex Electricity which covered a very extensive zone with many subsidiaries.
Other holding companies in the region included Power Securities/Balfour Beatty which owned the Metropolitan Power Supply Co. covering all the western London suburbs. The County of London Electric Supply Co. owned Bournemouth & Poole and various subsidiaries. The British Power & Light Corporation, a new creation, held the franchise for Ringwood and West Hampshire.
Twelve companies remained outside the larger national groups. The largest in area was the Mid Southern District utility company formed in 1930/31 from the earlier Aldershot Gas, Water and District Lighting Company and had subsequently taken over small companies in Godalming, Hindhead and Midhurst.
Although state intervention had begun to rationalise electricity generation, the efforts of the Electricity Commissioners to reduce the very large numbers of distributors were unsuccessful. The McGowan Report published in May 1936[48] and the subsequent government proposals were strongly opposed by many sections of the electricity supply industry. A recommendation in the McGowan Report, that all undertakings with annual sales of less than 10 million kWh should be amalgamated, was particularly controversial. Only seven of the 20 local authorities were above this limit and many small towns objected to the idea of amalgamation with large companies. The government‘s Outline of Proposals published in April 1937[49] but the continued opposition and more pressing issues of the time meant that reorganisation of distribution was set aside.
Edmundson’s Electricity Corporation took note of these moves toward amalgamation and reduced the number of small subsidiaries in the Wessex company territory. The spatial organisation of the late 1930s remained essentially unchanged until nationalisation.
Table 6 lists the various undertakings that were consolidated between 1911 and 1948. Acton was the only local authority to merge with a company. The resistance of local authorities to any loss of independence was a powerful force against all pressures for amalgamation.
Between 1935/46 and 1948 a few of the smaller power stations were closed. These included Alton, Amesbury, Bognor, Burford, Chipping Norton, Chiswick, Maidenhead and Slough & Datchet.
Private generation during the interwar period was generally retreating as public suppliers could offer more attractive tariffs, but there were exceptions especially in outer London. Southampton Corporation began supplying the docks in 1923 with an initial capacity of 3,500kW (about 20 percent of its total generating capacity).[50] By the end of the decade, in addition to the increasing demand from the port, the Southern Railway closed its obsolete generating facilities at the Eastleigh workshop and took a bulk supply from the Corporation. The Great Western Railway followed a similar pattern in Swindon and by 1930 its workshops were taking nearly two thirds of the output of the new Corporation power station.[51]
Table 6 Southern Area Consolidations to 1948.
In Slough the 2,000kW power station built in 1918/19 for the Army’s central vehicle depot had become a core asset in the development of the industrial estate. This power station was extended in the 1920s and again between 1933 and 1938 when new units totalling 16,800kW were added.[52] A reinforced concrete cooling tower, one of the first in southern England, was completed in 1934.[53] If the industrial sales of the trading estate had been supplied by the local Slough & Datchett company, the per capita sales of the area would have been very much higher than 174.1kWh per capita in 1935/36.
The new Hoover vacuum cleaner factory in Perivale near the northern limits of Ealing found benefits in generating most of its power and lighting needs with only a limited connection with the public mains.[54] Film studios, a growing new industry in western London, were heavy users of power for lighting and air conditioning.[55] The rebuilt Ealing Studios had a generating capacity of 950kW in 1932 and the new Denham studio complex opened in 1936 had a capacity of 4,500kW (about the same size as the Uxbridge power station).[56] All these studios used diesel engines as prime movers.
[31] The competing proposals from Bourne End and promoters in Cookham are considered in the Annual Reports of the Electricity Commissioners 1921-22, p.34; 1922-23, p.50; 1923-24, p.37.
[32] Herbert Leaf’s gift of electricity to Marlborough College in 1923 was made on condition that the town should also benefit. Mains from the College plant were laid in the Borough between 1924 and 1926. Later bulk supply was provided by the Wessex Company. Victoria County History, Wiltshire Vol.12 (1983) pp.199-229. British History on Line.
[33] Biographical details of J.H. Edwards may be found in Who’s Who in Engineering 1922 (Grace’s Guide), Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers November 1956, p.689. For company information see Garcke’s Manual.
[34] R.H. Parsons, The early days of the power station industry (Cambridge, 1939) p.127. Southampton installed its first turbine in 1910. The Engineer, vol.181. 1946, p.460.
[35] Electricity Commissioners, Ninth Annual Report, 1928-29 (London: HMSO, 1929) p.53. Details of the earlier proposals were published in the Sixth Annual Report 1925-26, p.25; Seventh Annual Report 1926-27, p.53; Eighth Annual Report 1927-28, p.34.
[36] Ministry of Transport, Report of the Committee appointed to review the National Problem of the Supply of Electrical Energy (London: HMSO, 1927), 39 pp.
[37] The controversial and expensive acquisition of part of the Oxford Electric Company by the City was described by R.H.S. Crossman, “Oxford Electric”, The New Statesman and Nation, 5 March 1938, pp.337-8. See also Victoria County History. Oxfordshire, Vol.4 (!979), pp.356-57. A private bill to authorise the transfer of the 1924 Electricity Special Order from Wessex Electricity was rejected by the House of Lords in 1938.
[38] Unlike the other companies, Wessex Electricity was part of a large international venture of the Utilities Power & Light Corporation based in the United States. A British subsidiary, the Greater London and Counties Trust, had been established in 1925 and within three years had acquired control of Edmundson’s, the Wessex company and other smaller entities. See: W.J. Hausman, P. Hertner and M. Wilkins, Global Electrification: Multinational enterprise and international finance in the history of light and power 1878-2007 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp.181-182. A full-page advertisement in The Times, “Faraday Number”, 21 September 1931, p.iv, included a detailed map of the Greater London and Counties Trust holdings.
[39] Tenth Annual Report of the Electricity Commissioners 1929-1930 (London: HMSO, 1931), p.14.
[40] Bill Luckin, Questions of Power: Electricity and the environment in inter-war Britain (Manchester University Press, 1990). The New Forest conflict is covered in Chapter 6, pp.109-114.
[41] The Times, 6 September 1933, p.6A.
[42] G.T. Moody, Southern Electric (London: Ian Allan, 1957), p.65.
[43] The dates are taken from the Electricity Commissioners Annual Reports.
[44] Ian Sherfield, Electric Wight: An illustrated history of the Isle of Wight electricity supply (Newport: Buckbury Publishing, 2012), pp.25-35.
[45] The closure of Winchester power station, after the town was connected to the grid, led to claims for compensation by 15 employees who suffered loss of employment or lower wages. Under the provisions of the 1919 and 1926 legislation, a Hearing was held and the Referee awarded the sum of £3,865 in respect of the claimants. Seventeenth Annual Report of the Electricity Commissioners 1936-37 (London HMSO, 1937), p.117.
[46] The data are derived from the Engineering and Financial Statistics for 1935-36 and 1925-26.
[47] See: “The electrification of a biscuit factory”, The Engineer, Vol. 155, 1933, pp.271-272. The three transformers for the incoming power had a capacity of 1,500kW.
[48] Ministry of Transport, Report of the Committee on Electricity Distribution, May 1936 (London: HMSO, 1936). The report noted that there were no fewer than 635 separate authorised undertakings in Great Britain in 1934, comprising the Central Electricity Board, 3 Joint Electricity Authorities, 5 Joint Boards, 373 Local Authorities and 253 Companies and persons.
[49] Ministry of Transport, Electricity Distribution: Outline of Proposals (London: HMSO, 1937).
[50] Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Proceedings. Southampton meeting 1928, p.564.
[51] Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Proceedings. Bristol meeting, 1930, p.925.
[52] Political and Economic Planning, Location of Industry (London, PEP, 1939) p.107.
[53] The general growth of Slough Estates is covered in Michael Cassell, Long Lease! (London: Pencorp Books, c1993).
[54] “The Hoover factory at Perivale,” The Engineer Vol. 155, 1933, p.521.
[55] Patricia Warren, British film studios: an illustrated history (London: Batsford, 1995).
[56] “The film studios at Ealing”, The Engineer, Vol,153, 1932, pp.122-124; “A film studio power station” (Denham), The Engineer, Vol.161, 1936, p.497.
