THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: The battle of the lights – gas versus electricity

The battle of the lights raged on in Belfast this week in 1884 during a meeting of the harbour board which had met to discuss switching from gas lighting to electricity, reported the News Letter.

On this occasion it was gas that triumphed, the paper noted: “It is not to be wondered at that the contest was a one-sided combat, and that our venerable and steady old friend gas scored another, and for this present at least decisive, victory over electricity, its juvenile and sparkling, but erratic rival.”

The controversy of gas versus electricity had been raging with varying results for several years in Belfast since electricity was first harness.

But there was growing confidence amongst the advocates of electricity that the switch from gas to the new energy provider would just be a matter of time. Indeed the News Letter remarked, “the opinions of the champions, of what Burns might have dubbed ‘The New Lights’, in the centennial year of the birth of [William] Murdoch, the inventor of gas, is certain to witness the successful dawn of an illuminant before which it must ‘pale its ineffectual light’.”

Despite electricity quickly gaining ground on gas the latter remained in favour and the News Letter went so far as to throw its weight behind that of gas.

The paper noted: “No doubt, great strides have been made in electric lighting; but every new discovery seems destined to create new obstacles, and it is only too evident, with all the recent improvements in operation.”