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JUST SWITCH IT ON!

Peter Wolfenden

Just plug it into the power-point and Councillor Smith’s lights were Municipality, and by about 1913, there
switch it on! That’s about all most of us probably no doubt a form of gas were three forms of consumer power
know about the electricity we use every lighting, essential to encourage people available in various parts of the
day. Oh, and there are also batteries. away from the pubs and into his municipality, all originating from the
They operate differently – something theatre! Council’s Spencer Street Power Station,
about Direct Current! Melbourne’s first recorded electric viz, 400/200volt single-phase AC,
Don Kennedy’s letter, State Secrets, light installation was at the Eastern 400volt three-phase AC and
(CR issue 44), set me thinking about Market (the site of the former Southern 460/230volt DC.
the electricity supply in the Melbourne Cross Hotel) where, in 1880, six arc- By the mid 1920’s the consumer
City area. As an ex-employee of the lamps were installed on a permanent networks had been reduced to 460/230v
Melbourne City Council’s Electric basis. There is also a report that an arc DC and 400v three phase AC.
Supply Department during the lamp was used at the Melbourne The three-phase AC supply was
1960/70s, I was already conversant Cricket Ground in 1879. initially distributed outside of the
with some facts about the AC immediate city area, as it had become
(Alternating Current) and DC (Direct obvious that it was preferable to DC,
Current) power distribution systems. for industrial purposes. By 1928, DC
However, I decided to hunt out some was confined to the immediate central
publications about the electricity supply city, ‘The Golden Mile’ bounded by
in the city and re-discovered some facts Flinders, Victoria, Spencer and Spring
which relate directly to Melbourne’s Streets. As a point of interest, those
cinemas and theatres. large green cast iron cabinets complete
Initially, traditional theatre made with Melbourne’s Coat of Arms,
use of wick lamps and candles for stage located at the intersection of most city
illumination. Later, pressure lamps and The streets, were originally used as
limelight were used. But with the Queens junction/supply boxes for the DC
advent of electricity, much more Theatre network. Many are still in use today
intense, or brighter illumination was 1847, corner of for other purposes such as street
possible. An early arc light could Queen and Little lighting.
produce between 500 and 2000 Bourke Streets 1929 saw the introduction of three-
candles’ illumination with the added where an enterprising owner paid to light phase AC 400 volt supply to parts of
advantage that it could be easily Queen Street as far as Flinders Street. the Golden Mile. According to a
controlled. After Swan and Edison council publication, possibly the first
perfected the incandescent or filament consumer substation was located at the
lamp, this also found it’s way into A small power station was built by Regent Theatre, primarily for the
theatre buildings. Filament lamps were a private undertaking, the Victorian ‘first’ talking picture to be shown in
on public exhibition at the Paris Electric Company in Russell Place, Melbourne in February 1929. The Jazz
Exhibition of Electricity in 1881. near the rear of the Town Hall. The Singer, sound on disc, was actually
The Port Phillip Herald of 2nd company built up a good business across the road at the Athenaeum, and
August 1847 reported that Councillor supplying power for lighting to local simultaneously, a few doors up from
Smith was having lamps installed ‘to premises, including the Opera House the Regent, the Auditorium was
light up the dark ways of Queen Street’ (Tivoli) and the Athenaeum Theatre. screening films in which the sound was
where he operated the Queens The bright arc lamps must have printed on the film. According to the
Theatre, on the south-west corner of been spectacular for those visiting these Listener In of January 30th 1929, these
Queen and Little Bourke Streets. The theatres at that time, although we all installations were by the Western
Councillor stated that the lamps would know that the older actors preferred the Electric Co.
extend along as far as Flinders Street. warmer, softer, limelight which they Both theatres had screen sound
The newspaper went on to say that the considered was more flattering than the before the Regent, but the three-phase
failure of the Town Corporation (the brilliant arc lamps! supply from the Regent was probably
City Council) to light the city streets ‘is During the mid -1890s, the fed to the Auditorium, and it may have
to be regretted, as the only lights are Melbourne City Council became also supplied the Athenaeum, located
those compulsorily fixed over the doors responsible for the generation and directly opposite. If so, I wonder if the
of the licensed victuallers’! distribution of electricity in its Regent proprietors were aware that
they were helping the opposition?

32 2005 CINEMARECORD