Gooday, G orcid.org/0000-0002-4300-471X and Harrison Moore, A orcid.org/0000-0003-4345-2202 (2021) Networks of Power? Rethinking class, gender and entrepreneurship in English electrification, 1880-1924. Journal of Energy History/Revue d’histoire de l’énergie, 6 (Home and Hearth. Gen). ISSN 2649-3055
Abstract
Traditional energy histories have treated electrification as an inevitability: the assumption has been that making cheap energy supply readily available for the masses required the energy efficiency uniquely attainable by large-scale networked electricity grids. While our account does not question that assumption, such a rationale can only explain the onset of electrification for contexts in which large scale electricity grids are already accessible to all. It cannot explain the earliest phase of electrification: what motivated the take up of electricity before such grids and their attendant economics actually existed to make it affordable and indeed competitive? We focus on the case of England before its National Grid was launched in 1926, a time when such alternatives as coal or its by-product coal-gas offered energy in a form that was cheaper or more convenient than stand-alone electrical installations and highly localised electricity infrastructures. Our initial aim is to survey a range of cultural rather than technocratic reasons for the early take-up of electricity in the 1880s to 1890s, treating it then as a luxury rather than a commonplace utility. In doing so, we return to Thomas Hughes’ seminal Networks of Power (1983) to examine how far the growth of electrical power supply was shaped not just by engineers and politicians that predominate in his account, but by old-money inherited aristocracy that Hughes touches upon only briefly. Specifically we investigate how the nascent electrical industry looked to these powerful wealthy aristocratic technophiles, male and female, to serve as ‘influencers’ to help broaden the appeal of domestic electricity as essential to a desirable life-style of glamorous modernity.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This item is protected by copyright. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Electricity; Business; Gender; Power; Innovation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 23 Jun 2021 11:34 |
Last Modified: | 08 Jul 2021 14:28 |
Published Version: | https://energyhistory.eu/en/special-issue/networks... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | EDF Group Foundation |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:175440 |