Kay, MA and Gooday, GJN orcid.org/0000-0002-4300-471X (2018) From hydroelectricity to the National Grid: Harewood House and the history of electrification in Britain, 1900–1940. History of Retailing and Consumption, 4 (1). pp. 43-63. ISSN 2373-518X
Abstract
This paper explores the changing experiences of electricity consumption in British country houses up to the early years of national electricity supply. We identify three stages of domestic electrification: the ‘experimental’ stage, when the technology was viable only for limited household purposes; the ‘fashionable’ stage when electrical lighting was rendered an aesthetic luxury; and finally the normalisation stage, when electricity was treated as a commodity, no longer a curiosity. We focus on this previously little-discussed final stage with evidence taken from a typical example: Harewood House, Leeds, at which electricity was installed in 1901. Like other pre-Grid country houses, Harewood had to be self-sufficient in electricity production for longer than households in urban areas where networked supply was available sooner. Since country houses could often employ hydroelectric generating systems, their electricity supply was both fully controlled by residents and free to use (discounting initial installation costs). However, in the 1930s, the arrival of the National Grid in rural areas brought not only new opportunities for centralised supply, but also new challenges. Our paper draws on new archival evidence from Harewood House to examine the adjustments required to electrical energy consumption when switching from self-generated electricity to a metered external supply.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in History of Retailing and Consumption on 28th March 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/2373518X.2018.1436222. |
Keywords: | Electrification, hydroelectricity, history, rural, Britain, self-sufficiency |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Arts & Humanities Research Council AHRC AH/M009157/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 29 Mar 2018 09:09 |
Last Modified: | 28 Sep 2019 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/2373518X.2018.1436222 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:129112 |