Search Results for 'Electric Light Company'

In the late 18th century, a ‘new town’ — Newtownsmyth — was built outside the town wall on the northern side. The project was undertaken by the governors of the Erasmsus Smith estate. In this suburb, a county courthouse was erected in 1815 and a town courthouse in 1824. In 1823, there were objections suggesting that there were several suitable sites ‘immediately in town’ and that it was ‘quite idle’ to lay foundations in the suburb of Newtownsmyth.

The Galway Electric Light Company was set up by James Perry, an engineer and County Surveyor of the Western District of Galway, and his brother, Professor John Perry, to generate electricity. On November 1, 1888, they applied for permission from the Galway Town Commissioners to ‘erect poles in some parts of the town as an experiment for the electric lighting of the town’. The company had established a generating station at Newtownsmith in an old flour mill which had existed since the 1600s and straddled the Friar’s River. They installed a hydroelectric turbine in the watercourse which was linked to a generator producing alternating current.