3-053-851 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Light on the clock-tower, Houses of Parliament, 1873. 'Few recent inventions of science are more remarkable than M. Gramme's electric light...This beautiful light, which shone conspicuously from its eyrie 260 ft. above the streets, illuminating them far and wide, was supplied by the electric current from a small machine requiring only 21-horse power to drive it...As the carbon points only burn five hours, whilst the House of Commons frequently sits eight or ten, and as the extinguishing of the light is intended to be the signal that the House of Commons has broken up, no cessation of the light, even by accidental circumstances, could be tolerated. Two lamps are therefore placed side by side...and are so arranged that when one lamp is out of use the other is brought into the focus of the holophote, and the electric communication with the machine and the light will instantly be re-established...As an instance of the power of this marvellous light, it may be observed that newspapers have been read by its rays in Trafalgar-square...It is possible that all our streets a few years hence may be nightly bathed in the glorious light of electricity, and the thousands of gaslights may then be replaced'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.