Electricity in Victorian Liverpool 1851–1901

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century Liverpool, having had a public electricity supply a decade before cities such as Manchester, Leeds or Bristol, held a prominent position in the electrical world. A study of the Merseyside area shows it to have been the location of many pioneering applications of electrical energy which predated, often by many years, their adoption in towns and cities elsewhere. When in 1879 the Liverpool Corporation Electric Lighting Act was passed it became the first on the statute book specifically related to lighting by electricity The events are examined which led to these considerable developments in the Victorian era.