London Hydraulic Power Company
Template:Short description The London Hydraulic Power Company was established in 1883 to install a hydraulic power network in London. This expanded to cover most of central London at its peak, before being replaced by electricity, with the final pump house closing in 1977.
History
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The company was set up by an act of Parliament, the Template:Visible anchor (47 & 48 Vict. c. lxxii), sponsored by railway engineer Sir James Allport,<ref name=HPC>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Efn to install a network of high-pressure cast iron water mains under London. It merged the Wharves and Warehouses Steam Power and Hydraulic Pressure Company, founded in 1871 by Edward B. Ellington, and the General Hydraulic Power Company, founded in 1882. The network gradually expanded to cover an area mostly north of the Thames from Hyde Park in the west to Docklands in the east.<ref name=Emmerson>Template:Cite web</ref>
The system was used as a cleaner and more compact alternative to steam engines, to power workshop machinery, lifts, cranes, theatre machinery (including revolving stages at the London Palladium and the London Coliseum, safety curtains at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the lifting mechanism for the cinema organ at the Leicester Square theatre and the complete Palm Court orchestra platform),<ref name=HPC /> and the backup mechanism of Tower Bridge.<ref name=Emmerson /> It was also used to supply fire hydrants, mostly those inside buildings. The water, pumped straight from the Thames, was heated in winter to prevent freezing.<ref name=HPC />
Pumping stations
The pressure was maintained at a nominal Template:Convert (55 bar) by five hydraulic power stations, originally driven by coal-fired steam engines.<ref name=HPC /> These were at:
- Falcon Wharf Pumping Station at Bankside, east of Blackfriars Bridge on the south bank of the River Thames (opened in 1883)<ref name=Skinner>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Kensington Court and Millbank (1887)<ref name=Skinner /> later (1911) replaced by a station in Grosvenor Road<ref name=Morgan>Template:Cite journal</ref>
- Wapping Hydraulic Pumping Station (est. 1890),<ref name=Skinner /> using the defunct Tower Subway to carry pipes under the Thames (closed on 30 June 1977, the last to be used)<ref name=Morgan />
- City Road Basin on the Regent's Canal in Islington (1893),<ref name=Skinner /> later used as the Marico furniture factory<ref name=Morgan />
- Renforth Pump House (Rotherhithe, Canada Water) (opened in 1904),<ref name=Skinner /> now residential accommodation
Short-term storage was provided by hydraulic accumulators, which were large vertical pistons loaded with heavy weights.
Cross-River Thames mains
The mains crossed the River Thames via Vauxhall Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and Southwark Bridge and via the Rotherhithe Tunnel as well as the Tower Subway.<ref name=Mike>Template:Cite web</ref>
Decline
The system pumped 6.5 million gallons of water each week in 1893; this grew to 32 million gallons in 1933.
From about 1904, business began to decline as electric power became more popular. The company began to replace its steam engines with electric motors from 1923. At its peak, the network consisted of Template:Convert of pipes, and the total power output was about Template:Convert.
The system finally closed in June 1977. The company, as a UK statutory authority, had the legal right to dig up the public highways to install and maintain its pipe network. This made it attractive to Mercury Communications (a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless) who bought the company and used the pipes as telecommunications ducts.<ref name=Emmerson /><ref name=Mercury>Template:Cite journal</ref> Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, the last of the five to close, later became an arts centre and restaurant.