New Gas Lamp
From the Hastings News of 09/01/1880
The Council agreed a new type of gas lamp could be put up temporarily near the Albert Memorial, to show how gas lamps could light the streets. [The was because of the possiblity that the electric company would provide better ...
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A Council meeting threw out a proposal to examine the cost of using electricity to power street lighting rather than gas. Electric lights had first come into large-scale use in 1879 and by 1881 were in use in most cities. ...
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Electric Light
From the Hastings News of 13/01/1882
The Council set up a committee to look into using electric light in the town. A year before, the councillors on 7 January 1881 had thrown out such a suggestion, but with electricity clearly becoming a serious rival to gas, ...
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Street Lights
From the Hastings News of 11/08/1882
The Council agreed to an experimental trial of electric light for street lighting.
Electric Go-Ahead
From the Hastings News of 20/10/1882
A special meeting of the Council agreed to allow the Hastings and St Leonards Electric Light Company to apply to the Board of Trade for a licence to supply electric light to Hastings.
Electric Wires
From the Hastings News of 11/05/1883
Wires were being laid by the Electric Light Company to light the town.
The annual meeting of the Hastings Electric Light Company on the afternoon of Thursday 31 May heard that the directors had purchased on a long lease a piece of ground on the corner of Earl Street abutting the railway. Here ...
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New Bus Company
From the Hastings News of 01/06/1883
The shareholders of the newly-formed Omnibus Company held a meeting at noon on Thursday 31 May in the observer building in Claremont. The chairman, Henry M Baker, said the meeting was simply a formal one to set up the company, ...
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Gas in Hollington
From the Hastings News of 03/08/1883
The Gas Company had just extended their mains to Hollington, and gas was available for 4s 4d per thousand cubic feet for private consumers. So far no move had been made for obtaining public lamps.
Gas Beats Electric
From the Hastings News of 07/09/1883
The Hastings Gas Company had won its battle to put up the price of gas and raise new share capital of £120,000 in its war against the new Electric Light Company. A meeting of gas shareholders was told on 6 ...
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The first electric street lights in Hastings were switched on during the evening of Monday 12 November. They burnt steadily and were 'much appreciated'. This followed a Council meeting on 7 September which had agreed to experimental lighting of part ...
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Electric Cables
From the Hastings News of 09/10/1885
The electric light company was allowed to erect overhead cables.
Seafront Lights
From the Hastings News of 15/11/1889
A special meeting of the Council discussed obtaining some premises in Rock-a-Nore for lighting the whole of the seafront by electric light.
An electric lighting sanction was given at a Town Council meeting on 3 April to extend the main from Warrior Square along the seafront to St Leonards Pier. Plus it was agreed that the second floor of the Brassey Institute ...
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Seafront Lighting
From the Hastings News of 09/09/1892
A Town Council meeting on 2 September heard the Public Lighting Committee recommend acceptance of an offer made by the Electric Light Company to light the seafront from the Fishmarket to end of West Marina for three years. The report ...
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Mr Edwin Mercer, manager of the Electric Light Works in Earl Street, was killed on the railway when something in a tunnel near Tunbridge Wells broke the window of his compartment and the glass struck his head.
Library Lit Up
From the Hastings News of 29/09/1893
Electric light was tried for the first time in the reference library in Claremont on 25 September.
Electric Front
From the Hastings News of 06/07/1894
The whole seafront was illuminated by electricity on Saturday 30 June for the first time. For several years 15 arc lights had lit the section between the Queens Hotel and the west end of Eversfield Place, but from 10.30pm on ...
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"Large crowds gathered round the shop window of Messrs Bruce and Co's Electric Department, 2 York Buildings, on Wednesday evening [19 February], to enjoy the brilliancy and attractiveness of the very fine display of electric apparatus, lamps, etc, placed on ...
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Light Problems
From the Hastings News of 08/01/1897
The Electric Light Company was not properly fulfilling its three-year contract to light the seafront. Many lamps had failed, and the service was often switched on late (if at all) or switched off early. At a Council meeting on 1 ...
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The widespread unease at the purchase by Hastings Council of the Electric Light Company's assets started becoming public. The well-known and respected Mr CF Botley, an electrical engineer, said the purchase price was excessive and the Council was paying too ...
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Anon Circulars
From the Hastings News of 05/11/1897
Anonymous circulars attacking the purchase of the Electric Light Company by Hastings Council were widely distributed.
Council Lit Up
From the Hastings News of 03/06/1898
The Front Line electric lighting came under Council control on Wednesday 1 June. Miles of new cable may be needed - "poor ratepayer", commented the News. In its 12 August edition, it reported that the Council's Public Lighting Committee had ...
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The Council was given official approval by the Local Government Board for the purchase of the Hastings Electric Light Company. In October, the Board had held an inquiry into the takeover, and there had been opposition to the Council's proposed ...
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A liquidator was appointed for the Electric Light Company at its winding-up meeting on 28 January. The chairman, Mr FA Langham, said he was confident that the shareholders would receive a bonus in addition to their share capital.
The Local Government Board carried out a public inquiry on 21 September into the application of Hastings Council to borrow £38,613 for the development and extension of the Electric Light Company. The Council had paid £54,850 for the works etc ...
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Tram Hopes?
From the Hastings News of 22/09/1899
The News reported that, with the local elections coming in November, councillors were ending their two year opposition to the trams in town. The News said the Council should build and run the system, not a private company. The widespread ...
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Death of important local establishment figure Frederick James Parsons, who turned the Hastings Observer into the most influential Hastings-area newspaper from the 1870s onwards. He was born in Rye on 6 October 1844, the eldest son of Isaac Parsons, a ...
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There were complaints from residents who lived in the vicinity of the Electric Light Works in Earl Street of the nuisance caused by vibration and smoke from the chimneys. The vibration was said to be worse since the Council controlled ...
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Cllr Boutwood questioned whether the losses on the Electric Light Works during the previous two years were to form a floating debt, or if an increase in rates would have to be made to make up the loss.
Electric Engineers
From the Hastings Mail of 20/12/1902
Members of the Institute of Electrical Engineers visited the recent extensions of the Corporation electricity works on 18 December.
The Mail commented: “The electric light works undertaking purchased by the Corporation in 1898 has had a very successful year, and there is every reason to believe that in a short time it will become profitable”. A reporter had visited ...
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Council Scandals
From the Hastings Mail of 09/07/1904
A Local Government Board of Inquiry was held in the Town Hall on July 7 to hear evidence in the application to borrow large sums. These included: (1) £17,170 for wood paving the three roads and water mains for them. ...
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Gas Latest
From the Hastings Mail of 10/09/1904
“The march of the Gas Company in Hastings and St Leonards has been one of triumph.” The manufacture of gas within the boundaries of Hastings will soon cease, moving to Glyne Gap. They would keep the existing holders and site ...
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A long letter from Charles William Tagg of 17 Ashburnham Road is published as a story, headed “Reducing Officials’ Salaries - Officials being made the scapegoats for mismanagement by councillors”. He spoke of the “gross mismanagement of past and present ...
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The Tramway Company had withdrawn Clause 39 from the Bill, and the other demands made by the opposition committee had been met, so they got what they wanted without going to the House of Lords. The Mail said: The Hastings ...
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The Mail said: Several tram cars should arrive by the end of next week from Preston, where they have been constructed by the Preston Electric Railways and Tramways Company. The car shed at St Leonards is ready for the reception ...
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A young electrical engineer was electrocuted at the generating power station of the Hastings Tramway Company at Ore Valley. James Sidney Dickson died almost instantly with a shock of 6,000 volts. This was the first fatality there.
A petition of nearly seventy shopkeepers in Queens Road asked that the thoroughfare should be lighted with arc lamps.
An extension of the electricity mains to the lower parts of Clive Vale was agreed at a Town Council meeting on 5 July. There was a lively debate because several councillors believed few residents wanted (or could afford) the new ...
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There was much amusement, as trams were often delayed on a bad stud for several minutes, while the officials and trackmen gave the vehicle a lift with crowbars. The lighting of the cars was seriously defective, a distance of some ...
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The Electricity Committee considered the desirability of lighting the whole of the public lamps in streets in which electric mains were laid. It was informed that there were then 480 gas lamps situated within 60 feet of the mains and ...
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Mail headline and story: "Sensational Charges Against Hastings Municipal Authorities and Guardians by Muddled Socialists. In connection with the bye-election in St Clements ward on 4 March, the local socialists secured a special issue of Justice, the organ of the ...
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The transformed Palace Pier [the St Leonards Pier, opposite the Royal Victoria Hotel] was to be reopened in May, after the American Syndicate had taken possession of the Pier on 1 April. The Mail of 10 April reported that the ...
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Light Failure
From the Hastings Mail of 08/05/1909
The Mail said: Thursday night (6th) was memorable as the occasion of the first noticeable failure of the electric light since installation of the duplicate machinery.