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30
ELECTRIC LIGHTING.
The Board of Trade directed Major Marinden to hold an
Enquiry into the various Electric Lighting schemes which had
been brought forward for the supply of electricity to the Metropolis.
The Enquiry was opened on the 3rd April, 1889, and was
attended by Representatives of the various Electric Lighting
Companies, and of several of the Vestries and District Boards of
London, some of them attending by Counsel The Clerk represented
the Vestry. The Enquiry lasted eighteen days, and the
Referee afterwards made his Report to the Board of Trade, and
in the result two companies pressed to have provisional orders
for Lambeth, viz., the London Electric Supply Corporation for
the northern portion of the Parish, and the Metropolitan Electric
Supply Company for the whole Parish. The Vestry at first preferred
the latter company, as providing for the whole Parish, but
the Board of Trade considering that it was necessary that the
London Company should be allowed to pass through the northern
end of the Parish for purposes of communication between their
works at the south-east of London and their main area of supply
north of the river, and as the London Company were prepared to
allow the main streets in the northern end of the Parish to be
included in the compulsory area of supply, the Vestry assented
to their order, and the same was afterwards passed by Parliament.
The area comprised in the order was the whole of the Parish
north of the Westminster Bridge Road, and the compulsory area
consisted of the following streets, viz., Waterloo Road, Westminster
Bridge Road, York Road, Stamford Street, New Cut, and Lower
Marsh.
As the Metropolitan Company refused to include within the
compulsory area of their order a satisfactory list of streets, the
Vestry objected to their order, and in the result the company
abandoned it.