The Bright Story of The Streetlight: Setting The World Alight

The Bright Story of the Streetlight: Setting the World Alight

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By Mr Ghaz, April 3, 2010

The Bright Story of the Streetlight: Setting the World Alight

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On June 3, 1807, London’s well-known Pall Mall was the scene of a singular event: the world’s first street with gas lighting. The man behind this marvel was a German-born entrepreneur, Frederick Winsor. The lights were part of the celebrations honoring the birthday of King George III; soon they would become a part of daily life in all major cities.

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Today it is probably difficult for most of us to imagine what life was like before the introduction of streetlights. Once night fell there was complete darkness, except for the occasional candle shining through a window or the torch carried by a lone traveler. The main source of light was the moon, and it offered strong illumination for only a few days each month.

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Most people stayed indoors after dark. It was a challenge to find one’s way, and the dark also provided cover for criminals. Indeed, so dangerous was the darkness that the Roman writer Juvenal warned that it was careless in the extreme to go out for supper at night without having first made a will.

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Not until the 15th century was street lighting introduced in Europe to any significant degree. In 1416 the lord mayor of London, Sir Henry Barton, ordered householders to hang lanterns outside their houses on writer evenings, and in 1461 King Louis XL of France issued similar instructions to the citizens of Paris in the interests of safety.

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Even by the end of the 17th century the situation in England had improved little. In London only 1 of every 10 houses was lit by an oil lamp. In most places streetlights were not used at all.

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In the United States, the main streets of New York and other cities were lit by lamps of whale oil tacked up on posts. Although liberally distributed throughout the city, numerous complaints were recorded that the lights were very inefficient and barely made the darkness visible.

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Illuminating Ideas

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The invention of gas lighting in the 19th century altered the situation considerably. At last, here were technologies that give people the freedom to travel more safely at night. Despite objections from those who claimed that it would frighten horses, by 1830 gas street lighting had been adopted on a large scale in New York as well as in most European cities.

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Experiments with electricity that began in the mid-19th century made possible even brighter street illumination. Although many people had been producing electric lamps from 1845 onward, it was the work of Joseph Swan in England and Thomas Alva Edison in the United States that was to revolutionize street lighting.

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Independently of each other, both scientists had invented the incandescent filament electric lamp-Swan in 1878 and Edison in 1879. Using an improved vacuum system within the glass bulb containing the filament, the lamps were brighter and lasted longer than existing ones, making them ideal street lighting.

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Soon Edison’s lights were appearing in the streets of New York, powered from the Pearl Street Power Station. Established in 1882, it was the prototype of every generating station in the world today. For the first time, the public had a supply of electricity available on demand.

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The invention of electric light had a strong impact in the United States, especially in reducing street crime. And by 1884 New York, in particular, was illuminated so well that the British electrical engineer Sir William Preece was moved to write: “I know of nothing more dismal than to be transplanted from the brilliantly illuminated avenues of New York to the dull and dark streets of London.”

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However, despite its advantages, electric light superseded gas very slowly. But the advent of automobiles demanded brighter street lighting, and by the 1930’s mercury and sodium lights were in general use.

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Today we take inexpensive, efficient lighting for granted. And those who complain of the cost of electricity should note that it would cost 500 times more to produce the same amount of light from candles than it does from one fluorescent tube.