Godalming in southeastern England came to world attention when it became the first town in the world to have a public electricity supply installed, which made electricity available to consumers. It was powered by a waterwheel, located at Westbrook Mill, on the river Wey. The Godmaling streets were first illuminated on October 1, 1881.
In an effort to produce electric light, Thomas Edison studied the entire history of lighting. He filled 200 notebooks containing more than 40,000 pages with his notes on gas illumination alone.
Edison bought electricity to the masses by digging up roads and installing cables. He designed the first hydroelectric plant, the steam-driven Pearl Street Plant, which put electric light in the streets and houses.
AT 3pm on September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison flicked a switch to turn on the world’s first electricity power plant to supply electricity to paying customers in Pearl Street, Manhattan, New York. This is considered by many as the day that began the electrical age.
When Edison declared an interest in supplying electricity to subscribers, the gas suppliers, in fear for their domestic lighting business took him to court. They argued that electricity was too dangerous to be supplied to households. The courts’ ruling was that a maximum 100-volt was safe to supply.
The Vulcan Street Plant, the first hydroelectric central station to serve a system of private and commercial customers in North America, was put into operation four weeks later in Appleton, Wisconsin, US. The first buildings to be lit by the Vulcan Street Plant were the Appleton Paper and Pulp Company building, the Vulcan Paper Mill and the home of H.J. Rogers, who was the president of the Appleton Paper and Pulp Co at the time.
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