First Electric Lighting in a Private Home.

It is generally accepted that William Armstrong was the first to install lighting, in Cragside just outside Rothbury, dates vary from 1878 to 1880 depending on lamp definition.


Regards


BOD

I suspect that the Cragside installation could reasonably be regarded as the first successful and permanent electric lighting installation with numerous lamps in different rooms.

The handful of earlier ones are in my view tests or experiments, rather than a permanent installation.

I don’t know without doing an internet search.


Whilst researching gas lighting I actually found out that in many buildings the gas lighting was not replaced when electricity was installed into the building, instead electric ignition was installed to the gas lighting to make it easier to operate.

Indeed, though electric ignition of gas lights did not need mains electricity. A battery would serve. Two systems existed, high voltage and low voltage.

The high voltage system used an induction coil to produce thousands of volts from a couple of dry cells. This produced a spark to ignite the gas.

The low voltage system used a platinum filament heated by dry cells to ignite the gas. Both systems used the gas pipe as one conductor.


Alternatives included self igniting gas mantles, these contained finely divided platinum, that caused a reaction between oxygen in the air and hydrogen in the town gas. This produced heat, which speeded up the reaction until it ignited. Only worked with town gas, did not work with natural gas, or petrol vapour, or LPG.


The simplest was was a continually burning pilot light, but this added complexity, wasted gas, and produced unwanted light in say a bedroom.

And of course LIMITED electric lighting was possible from large dry cells. Four flag cells, and a 5.5 volt 0.3 amp bulb would give minimal lighting for several dozen hours. That could be a years limited use as a convenience light if the main lighting was gas or oil.


A  late relative purchased a new house in the 1930s, "wired for the electric light" but no electricity supply was available for a couple of months. They connected a 6 volt car battery to the fuse box and fitted home made adapters to use 6 volt cycle dynamo  MES lamps in the bayonet lamp holders.

Once a week they swapped the battery for the one in the car.

Minimal lighting at the flick of a switch was far better than fumbling with a torch or a candle. They had a gas cooker, a Tilley lamp, and a coke boiler for heating and hot water.

A neighbour used a battery charged at the local pub.

Well, Colonel R.E, Crompton C.B., R.E., M. Inst. C.E. and M. Inst. E.E. was a bit out then. He firstly used cells then a portable generator to illuminate his house for special parties with fixed arc lamps in his drawing room and dining room. He believed this to be the first instance of effective electric lighting in a private house. (Although he says that there had been exhibitions of electric lighting at the Royal Institution and elsewhere.) Source: The Development of Electric Lighting. An article by Crompton in the book: Practical Electrical Engineering Vol. 2. Newnes. I wonder what the neighbours though about a noisy generator nearby?


Z.

I'd add a nice little history book Electricity Supply in the United Kingdom: A chronology (Electricity Council, 1987) that's available online.  It doesn't seem to mention this specific case, but the first entry for 1880 claims the house of another big name to be lighted with - appropriately to that name - incandescent lamps, as "possibly the first in the world".


It's usually amusing to compare versions of technical history between countries. A very different set of names tends to come up in, e.g., American publications, regarding the first lighting, public supply, ac transmission, motor, etc, etc, even when not restricted to a country. Qualifiers such as "commercial", "permanent", "public", etc, are helpful for making claims more defensible. Someone showed me a list a few years ago of (from what I remember) 6 or so names that in various countries are considered the originators of 3-phase electricity.  So even if this book were aimed at the world rather than the UK, we should be a bit cautious of "firsts". As it is, its focus is the UK but it does mention some particularly notable events elsewhere.