Ferranti and the British Electrical Industry, 1864–1930 by J. F. Wilson

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 169 Lewchuk’s book, based on detailed research in archival collections on both sides of the Atlantic, reflects new levels of sophistication in work on the motor industry. It will be of interest to readers in a range of disciplines from labor industry to the history of technology. In the detailed discussion of the problems of adapting production technol­ ogy to old institutions, Lewchuk’s work has a place alongside David Hounshell’s From the American System to Mass Production 1800—1932 (1984) and Michael Cusumano’s The Japanese Automobile Industry: Technology and Management at Nissan and Toyota (1985). Gerald T. Bloomfield Dr. Bloomfield is a professor of geography at the University of Guelph. His research interests include the historical geography of the automotive industry in Britain and North America. Ferranti and the British Electrical Industry, 1864—1930. By J. F. Wilson. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press and St. Martin’s Press (distributor), 1988. Pp. ix+ 165; appendix, bibli­ ography, index. $39.95. The career of Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti (1864—1930), the ItalianBritish electrical engineer, contradicts the stereotypical image of the conservative British entrepreneur of the late Victorian and Edward­ ian periods. With no advanced scientific or engineering education, Ferranti quickly established an international reputation as an imagi­ native and bold electrical inventor who was far ahead of his contem­ poraries. Most of this reputation rests on the Deptford plant, a large central station built 8 miles from London on the other side of the Thames River (where land, coal, and water were inexpensive) in 1888—91. Ferranti designed the plant to supply alternating current to the city from four gigantic generators (10,000 horsepower each) through underground cables operating at the unprecedented voltage of 10,000 volts. Despite the plant’s many misfortunes—reduction of its service area by the Board of Trade in 1889, disruption of service and loss of customers caused by two fires in 1890, and the directors’ decision in 1891 not to complete the 10,000-hp generators—several historians have credited Deptford as the forerunner of modern electricity supply (transmission of high-voltage AC over long dis­ tances). Others, notably Thomas Hughes, have praised Ferranti for seeing the value of high-voltage AC but have criticized him for scaling up too quickly and for overlooking the advantages of polyphase over single-phase current (the former was better equipped at the time to provide electric power, as well as light, because of the recent invention of the induction motor). The extent of Ferranti’s technological “genius” is an important question for this new biography. One ofJ. F. Wilson’s main arguments 170 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE is that a restricted economic market and lack of financial support, not unfavorable laws or the lack of ingenuity, handicapped the British electrical industry in the late 19th century. The weak British economy thus constrained Ferranti’s inventive drive, which would have thrived in Germany or the United States. Paradoxically, Wilson also argues that much of the success which the Ferranti firm enjoyed before World War I was due to its executives’ reining in Ferranti’s inventive­ ness (e.g., persuading him to stop improving machines so they could be shipped out the door). Wilson admires Ferranti’s technical achieve­ ments and credits his technically led strategy for the firm’s success after World War I. But the real heroes of the book—published in a business history series—are the professional managers of the Ferranti company who introduced modern business methods that saved the firm—during its checkered history of fires and commercial failures— from the inept business decisions of its founder. Although better than the biography published by Ferranti’s daugh­ ter in the 1930s and more comprehensive than the booklet published by the London Science Museum, Wilson’s book is disappointing in many ways. Technical matters are described poorly, an unfortunate quality in a book that criticizes Hughes and others for their appraisal of Ferranti’s technical achievements. Wilson is not convincing on this score or in his attempt to explain the “failure” of British entrepre­ neurship in this period. Although based on research in the Ferranti...