View report page

7
The above mentioned report of the Parliamentary Committee was considered
by the Vestry on the 10th January, 1893, when the Committee's action in appointing
Mr. E. Manville, Consulting Electrical Engineer to the Dublin, Portsmouth,
Salford, and Kilkenny Corporations, to report to the Vestry on the preliminary
points required by the Vestry, at a fee of 30 guineas, was approved.
Mr. Manville proceeded to make an elaborate report upon the questions
submitted to him, in which he expressed the opinion:
(1) That the supply of Electricity could be established in Shoreditch with
greater profit to the undertakers than in many of the more favourable neighbourhoods
in London, owing to the late hour the shops were kept open and to the
probable demand for motive power for the various industries, which indicated that
Shoreditch would prove a most admirable field for the introduction of a Municipal
electric lighting generating station. He pointed out that in the case of the three
electrical supply stations of St. Pancras, Dublin, and Brighton, no charge had had
to be made against the rates to meet the maintenance and sinking fund of the
undertaking, though only in their first year of working.
(2) He was of opinion that the most advantageous system which could be
adopted for Shoreditch was the high tension continuous current transformer system
for private lighting, and the high tension continuous current system for public
lighting by arc lamps. Distributing sub-stations would have to be used, and the
system would be applicable for supplying current for motive power purposes. The
system recommended possessed nearly all the advantages of the high tension
alternating system in point of economy in conductors, whilst it could be used in
combination with accumulators.
(3) He advised that there should be three sub-stations located—(a) In the
basement of the Town Hall ; (A) At about the junction of Curtain Road and
Holywell Lane ; (c) In the central generating station itself, unless the site for the
generating station was away from the district of the compulsory area, when another
station might become necessary, and he described the method of distribution
proposed.
(4) After discussing the dust destructors at Chelsea, Battersea, South
Warrington, and Leeds, he adds that " in order to ensure perfect combustion in a
destructor, the refuse should be burnt under forced draught so as to raise the
temperature of some portion of the furnace to over 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. All
the gaseous products of combustion that are produced in this furnace should then
be passed through the hottest part of the furnace, so as to ensure these gases being
raised to at least that temperature, when they are perfectly consumed and rendered
absolutely innocuous even at the chimney's mouth. There can be no reasonable