Deptford Power Station

 

Walk along the river side from tip to Greenwich continues.  last time I looked at the industries which were on the site now this covered by the estate around Glaisher and Basevi roads in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries - shipbuilding and some manufacturing

If you walk from Borthwick Street along the riverside you come eventually to the spot where the path turns right to continue up Deptford Creek and where there is also now a bridge which crossed the creek to go into Greenwich. As we walk along we can see parallel to the path an enormous and apparently derelict jetty in the river. Then, standing on the corner in a sort of enclosure are a series of rather strange statues which were given by the Russian government to commemorate the visit of Tsar Peter the Great to Deptford - but he visited the Royal Dockyard half mile ship

o the west so there site here is not really appropriate.  With some difficulty you can also discover that this open space is called Ferranti Green. It is Ferranti we are interested in and it’s a shame that this seems to be the only mention on him here - there is a park some distance away in the Lewisham bit of Deptford which is named after him.  Sebastian de Ferranti came here as a very young man and did something which was utterly and totally amazing

Electricity is something we now take it for granted but in the late 19th century, although it was used for many applications, these were localised and a small scale. Lighting in streets and building was dominated by gas.  Gas was made in gasworks, which are essentially big centralised manufacturing bases, before being distributed to customers via a network of popes.  If electricity to be successfully sold to the public it needed to be handled in much the same way. There were a number of ideas about how this could be done and there were various developments and inventions. In London the Charlton based German company Siemens was one of the leaders in this

An Act of Parliament in 1882 allowed the setting up of supply systems by companies and local authorities.  Following this an Edison electric light station was set up at 57 Holborn Viaduct using coal as a fuel. It ran at a loss and soon closed.  Thomas Edison supported a direct current based systems, and held many key patents and his power plants supplied DC power. Another scheme was at The Grosvenor Gallery –the site, in New Bond Street is now Sothebys.  It had been set up by wealthy artist Sir Coutts Lindsay as a place to showcase pre Raphaelite painters. In 1882 the gallery was experimentally lit by electricity and soon after a small power station was constructed nearby but could only supply a small area close by... 

So, who was Sebastian de Ferranti? He was born in Liverpool of Italian and Polish parents and, a child prodigy, attended a school in Ramsgate where he was given space to work on various schemes with special tuition and support from a local electrician. When he was 14 he developed an alternator which was later patented and widely used. Leaving school he was employed in the Experimental Department of Siemens works at Charlton.  He soon moved on to set up a small manufacturing works for his own ideas and was then appointed as Engineer at the Grosvenor Gallery to advise and resolve problems

The wealthy promoters of the gallery set up the London Electrical Supply Company and then began to think about expansion.  Ferranti understood that if electricity was to be supplied on a large scale the manufacture needed to be outside of city centres and go to places where land was cheap and water and coal were is available.  At the same time there was a debate within the electrical industry about transmission by direct or by alternating current. Thomas Edison supported direct current based systems, and he held many key patents so his power plants supplied DC power. Ferranti worked on alternating current from early on, and was one of the few experts in this system in the UK.

In 1887 Ferranti was asked by LESCO to take on the design of their proposed power station at Deptford... He designed the building, the generating plant and the distribution system. On its completion in 1891, it was the first truly modern power station, supplying high-voltage AC power that was then "stepped down" for consumer use on each street. This basic system remains in use today around the world.  He was just 23 years old.  

The new generating station was at Deptford to be built on the site, and then called Stowage Wharf. This was part of the area which had originally been used by the East India Company and in more recent years for general manufacturing.  It was a riverside site and lay between the sites of a ship building firm and the General Steam Navigation Company.

What was planned at Deptford was something much bigger than anything which had been seen before. It would be capable of supplying 2 million lamps. Ferranti, newly married, lived in a cottage on site which was used as an office and also somewhere where he could work and sleep.  Edison himself visited Deptford in 1889 and spent a long time examining the arrangements. Britain was seen as backward in developing electric lighting and suddenly here was a scheme which was about to leap frog all the others and set up something many times the capacity of any other electric lighting system in the world.  Ferranti also designed transmission systems by cable, working with railway companies to provide routes and avoid digging up the streets.  Some of his cables survived in use until the 1930s.

And then it all went wrong.  It was such an ambitious scheme; there were bound to be problems.  Authorities cut back on the areas of supply, there was a fire at the Grosvenor Gallery, and new equipment broke down.  Finally investors became nervous. Ferranti left and went back to his manufacturing career and Deptford generating station ran successfully enough but nothing like the original grand vision.

Ferranti was replaced at Deptford by G.W.Partridge – who appears to be one of the unsung heroes of early electrical power generation. He was responsible for the station’s switchgear and by 1912 the station was not only providing AC power for domestic and commercial customers, but also DC for industrial and similar customers and AC power for trams and railways. Deptford generating station had an important role in the spread of electrified traction on south London railways in this period – which from the late 1920s were its main customers.   Partridge went on to become Managing Director.

This first power station at Deptford became known as Deptford East.   It survived the Great War although despite a bomb from a Zeppelin which killed one man and damaged a great deal of machinery. After the war more railway lines were taken on – and Deptford was just one station among a number of competing companies. In 1925 LESCO merged with nine others to become the London Power Company

 A second power station to be called Deptford West was built in the mid 1920s.  It was designed by Leonard Pearce who also built Battersea Power Station.   It was built on the site of the two dry-docks which had previously been used by various shipbuilders from the 17th century – including Barnard ad Lungley - and which may have been originally built by the East India Company.   .It   came into service in 1929, despite some terrible accidents and several deaths during construction.   It was then, and remained, along with Deptford East, the largest power station in London. Within five years the Second World War brought another round of bombing – 27 staff were killed on site in the course of the war. Once the war was over the station had to face the problems of the 1947 big freeze.

Electricity was nationalised after the Second World War and it was the new Electricity Authority which finished and added the Deptford East High Pressure plant which was adjacent to the Ferranti Station.

The story of this innovative site came to an end as the various component parts were closed down. Ferranti’s’ original Deptford East closed in the late 1960s. Deptford West in the early 1970s and the High Pressure Plant in 1983.  Then the regenerators moved in – and built the housing we see today. The site is now called Millennium Quay, and, as has been noted already, there is no mention of the power station anywhere to be seen– apart from an unexplained reference to Ferranti.  As far as I am aware there is no plaque, no reference, no nothing to note the site of the first centralised power station in the world – or indeed its later and larger successors.   To this lack of information can of ourse be added the many shipbuilders which were here, as well as the East India Company and General Stream Navigation.

Before the housing was built I recall plodding through a sea of mud to a hut built of sandbags in which were a group of archaeologists. Their report, which I can’t find on line, would have been of great interest and useful for these articles.   Unknown to me then  but also fighting through the mud and debris was a local woman who rescued a great deal of documentation from skips, and interviewed ex-workers. Much of what we know about the station is what she recorded and she has never ceased to publicise the site and what happened there.  Hardly anybody will be aware that when electricity was a nationalised industry there was a huge archive at Sumner Street in Bankside. When the industry was privatised in the early 1990s that archive was destroyed – so the small amount saved by the Deptford enthusiasts is very very precious

So what remains – nothing that we can see? Is there anything at all??    Alongside the river wall is the vast coaling jetty, derelict and the worse for wear.   Are there any pas for it?  Perhaps someone will tell us

There is also a very lively consciousness of Deptford power station among activists in Deptford. The other more tangible relic is some distance away in Greenwich High Road.  This small substation building stands just south of the turning into Norman Road.  Over the lintel is carved the letters ‘LESC’. It is estimated to date from the early 1920s and has actually been locally listed by Greenwich just this year.

So –my next article next time we must turn our backs on Deptford and cross the Creek – where we first encounter an older means of providing lighting and power. Along with a scandal.