Grosvenor Gallery Electric Supply Corporation
1885 Sir Coutts Lindsay and others, in the course of alterations to the Grosvenor Gallery, installed electric lighting supplied from an engine-generator at the rear of the premises[1], and went on to supply neighbouring trade premises.
After the first design failed to work effectively Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti was brought in to overhaul the station and distributing system. Experience at the Grosvenor Gallery demonstrated the practical feasibility of Ferranti's ideas.
1886 The Select Committee was told that, at that time, there was only one central electricity supply station in the UK, one that had been established and worked without any statutory authority by Sir Coutts Lindsay and Co, at the rear of the Grosvenor Gallery; this supplied no more than 6000 lamps[2].
1887 Due to fire associated with the accumulator at a customer's premises in Regent St, an errand boy was sent to cut the wires carrying current but fell to his death from the roof; the company's engineer denied that the electricity would have given more than a slight shock and said that, although the insulation had been removed, the wires had not been cut[3]
1887 Woodhouse and Rawson had done all of the overhead installation work for Sir Coutts Lindsay and Co[4]; the system was being extended from 5000 to 40000 lamps.
1887 London Electric Supply Corporation took over the Grosvenor Gallery Electric Supply Corporation, London's first commercial electric power supplier[5]
1888 '.... The current is supplied by two Ferranti dynamos, each with thirty coils in the armature and sixty magnets in the field. The magnets are excited by Siemens’ dynamos, there being three exciters for the two machines, one being held in readiness to replace either of the other two if required. The motive power is supplied by three sets of engines ; one constructed by Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves and Co., having a cylinder 33 in. in diameter by 4 ft. stroke, and running at 80 revolutions per minute; it drives a dynamo by 17 ropes running off a flywheel 18 ft. in diameter ; the second and third sets of engines are pairs of 70 nominal horse-power, built by Messrs. Marshall and Sons, of Gainsborough. These are driven by steam of 120 lb. pressure, and indicate many times their nominal horse-power. The boilers are of the Babcock and Willcox type, and are situated in an adjoining basement connected with the engine-house by three tunnels. A complete system of oil distribution pipes surrounds the machinery, a constant flow being maintained through all the bearings, and the oil being pumped again into an overhead tank from which it re-commences its circulation. ....'[6]