Early Electricity Usage in Brisbane

 

The first person to write that “Queensland was the first colony in the Empire to have an electric supply” was (probably) an early lecturer in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland (1920 – 1950) Dr A Boyd, Associate Professor (1946), Dean (1947) [1]. The first electricity supply in Brisbane was in 1883.

 

The earliest public displays of electric lighting in early 1882 were at Sutton’s foundry (corner of Adelaide St and Isles Lane), and later that year in Queen St between Eagle St and the Victoria Bridge. Electric lighting was installed and put on trial in April 1983 at the Government Printing Office in William St. From April to June 1983, contracts were signed to run underground mains using Edison 2-core “street tubes” from a small power station near the Printing Office to supply direct-current electricity at 110 volts for lighting using Brush arc lamps in the Parliamentary Buildings [2 – 4]. The installations were planned to take a few months. There were some initial difficulties, including excessive voltage drop that necessitated increasing the size of the mains. The project to supply electricity reliably was nominally complete in July 1986. In July 1891, with extensions to the Parliamentary Buildings in progress, a specification was prepared to double the capacity of the mains using 3-core Edison tubes; this work was completed in May 1982. E G C Barton, Government Electrician, was responsible for the project.  Barton subsequently formed the company Barton and White to install a power station in Edison Lane, and in 1887, started the first public electricity supply in Australia – the first customers were the Post Office and the Gresham Hotel.  Barton gave the first lecture on electricity in Brisbane, and was a participant in the moves to create the University of Queensland and to ensure it included the study of Engineering.

 

The Barton and White Company was transformed into The Brisbane Electric Supply Company, and eventually became the City Electric Light (CEL) Company in 1904. CEL later became the Southern Electricity Authority of Queensland, one of the predecessors (with BCC Department of Electricity) of SEQEB and ENERGEX.

 

When the Edison tubes were installed in 1883, the only cities in the world that had similar installations were New York and London in 1882, so Brisbane was not far behind.  It seems therefore that Dr Boyd’s statement is correct.

 

 

Mat Darveniza  AO FTSE

Professor Emeritus

 

 

[1] A Boyd, “Electrical Development in Brisbane”, EUS Journal 1950, pp21-2

[2] B J Becconsall, J M Simmers, “ Electric Lighting in Brisbane – the first decade 1882-1892”, Inst of Eng Aust Qld Div Tech Papers, vol 33 (nos 4 and 5), April 1992, pp1-12 and 13-24

[3] A D Mackenzie, S A Prentice, “ The First Underground Mains for Electricity Supply in Brisbane”, Queensland Museum Memoirs, vol 35 (no 1), 1994, pp 182-192

[4] M I Thomis, “A History of the Electricity Supply Industry in Queensland”Boolarong Press for Queensland Electricity Commission, 1987.