View report page

5
this question was under consideration by the Lighting Committee, the
Electric Lighting Act of 1882 became law. The main provisions of
this Act are so well known that it is hardly necessary to repeat them
in this Report. Suffice it to say that the Act provided for the granting
of a license or provisional order by the Board of Trade to any Local
Authority, Company or person, to authorise the supply of electricity for
public or private purposes, and contained express provisions with regard
to the purchase of any undertaking by the local authority within six
months after the expiration of a period of 21 years from the date of the
Act confirming a provisional order, upon certain terms. The consent
of the Local Authority was needed to the granting of a License to any
Company or person, but no such consent was required to the granting
of a Provisional Order. The effect of the passing of this Act was that
a vast amount of capital was raised for floating a large number of
Electric Lighting Companies, a considerable part of which capital was
expended in experimenting and in purchasing patents which were
afterwards supplanted by improved inventions.
Recognising the importance of the question, the Vestry, in
December, 1882, appointed a Special Committee, and authorised it to
obtain expert assistance to advise it in dealing with an application by
the Metropolitan (Brush) Electric Light and Power Company for a
provisional order. An order was granted by the Board of Trade to this
Company, and confirmed by Parliament; but it was subsequently
revoked by the Board, as the Company failed to comply with the
requirements of the order.
Since that time the Parish of Islington has been sought after by
company promoters as a field for the supply of the Electric Light, and
where the Vestry had good reason to believe the application of a
Company was a bond fide one it gave its encouragement to the Company
with a view of getting the light in the Parish. In some cases, however,
the applications were abandoned, and in others the orders which had
been granted by the Board of Trade were revoked. The orders recently
granted to the House-to-House Company and to the Camberwell and
Islington Company have met the same fate, owing to the non-compliance
by the Companies with the requirements of the orders.