Electricity: the Spark of Life

Fascinating exhibition at the Wellcome Collection looking at electricity, focusing on its generation, supply and consumption.

It wasn’t till I started going round this exhibition that I remembered I used to work in the electricity industry, how could I have forgotten! Despite this I’d never thought about how the electricity industry developed and how the infrastructure like the National Grid was developed.

The first section looked at early observations of natural electricity and how we started to generate it. I was very amused by an early experiment to pass a charge around a group of people with a wonderful picture of 180 of Louis XV’s guard trying the trick and then a wonderful film of 1950 scientists trying a similar thing with an electric eel.

I loved the section on supply which included one of the first batteries but I most interested to see that the Grosvenor Gallery, known to me as holding Impressionist exhibitions, was one of the first buildings in the UK to use electric light and, as it generated this itself, it became a substation supplying to other areas of London.

The supply displays included a wonderful section on how electricity was mainly advertised to women as a labour saver in the kitchen.  I loved a series of tea towels from the Electric Association for Women with details of how to wire a plug etc. As someone who’s just paid to have new lights in their lounge and bedroom, I wonder if it might have been cheaper to buy a tea towel and do it myself!

Closes on 25 June 2017

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