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"Seven Sisters Road and the north-west side of Tollington Road, from
"the entrance to Mr. Beale's existing electric lighting station to the
"Holloway Road." To this limitation Messrs. Sharpe & Kent
demurred; but the Board of Trade declined to grant their order, on
the ground that the consent of the Vestry had not been obtained and
they saw no reason why such consent should be dispensed with.
Matters stood thus at the time of the appointment of your Special
Committee in January, 1892. The order granted to the Camberwell
and Islington Company (before referred to) had not then been revoked,
although no steps had been taken to carry it into effect.
For some time past a strong feeling has been manifest in the
Vestry that the time had come for the Vestry to seriously consider
the advisability of undertaking the supply itself, and with this object
your Special Committee was appointed to inquire into the different
systems of electric lighting in use and the probable cost of introducing
the current into the Parish.
PRELIMINARY REPORT.
Your Committee, it will be remembered, presented a preliminary
report to the Vestry on the 22nd July last, recommending that
application be made to the Board of Trade for a provisional order
to authorise the Vestry to supply electricity in the Parish, a step
which the Vestry unanimously resolved to take. In order to justify
such a course, your Committee, as pointed out in the report, obtained
the advice of Professor Henry Robinson, M.Inst.C. & E.E. (the
Consulting Engineer to St. Pancras Vestry), as to the respective cost
of gas and electricity and the probability of a contribution being
required from the rates should the Vestry become the undertakers. It
may be as well, perhaps, to shortly recapitulate the leading features of
Professor Robinson's Report. That gentleman recommended the
adoption of the continuous current at low tension, and stated that two
stations—connected through mains—would be capable of serving the
Parish, one station being for the area to the N.W. of the Great
Northern Railway, and the other for the area to the South East. A