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Description: | Single strand of copper wire encased in a wax insulator reinforced by a strip of cloth, from Lord Kelvin's lecture theatre at the University of Glasgow (now the University Senate Room).
There are two lengths of the material rolled up in two film cans. See also GLAHM 105634 and 113586-91 The Life of Lord Kelvin, Silvanus P. Thompson, 1910. Cable from Lord Kelvin's Lecture theatre, now the University Senate Room. Kelvin was a member of the British Association's committee which had been appointed to report on the feasibility of electric lighting. He was a keen advocate of the principle and had been invited by Swan, in 1880, to be a consultant to his lamp manufacturing company. Kelvin declined an official position, but volunteered his services testing the lamps in his own laboratory.
In 1881 it was reported, in The Times May 16, 1881, that Kelvin had taken delivery of one of the new Faure lead-acid accumulators which he had been asked to evaluate. Much impressed by this device he had more of them constructed in his own workshop. Later that month he was confined to his bed with a recurring leg injury, sustained when he broke his hip in December 1860 whilst curling at Largs. Frustrated by poor eyesight he had a Swan lamp pinned to his bed post. It was powered by a Faure cell which he called his box of electricity'.
Kelvin was so impressed by the electric lamp that he determined to light his university residence at No. 11 Professor's Square, and his teaching facilities at the university, entirely by electricity. On December 22 1881 he wrote to a friend, William Ewart Gladstone, mentioning that he had wired his house from attic to cellar' and was on the point of lighting his laboratory, lecture room and house, with Swan and Edison lamps. The project, in 11 Professor's Square, involved the replacement of 106 gas burners by an equal number of Swan 85 volt, 16 candle power lamps.
By February of 1882 Kelvin had installed a similar 12 lamp system in his laboratory, 52 lamp system in his lecture theatre and a ten lamp system in the University Senate room. The lamps were powered by a battery of 120 Faure cells, arranged in three parallels, which were maintained by Sir William Siemens' shunt wound dynamo, run by a Clerk gas engine, which he installed in his laboratory. He could operate 40 lamps from the battery alone and from 70 to 80 lamps with the combined battery and dynamo.
Between 1881 and 1884 he set about making improvements to the generating system, designing control and monitoring equipment. In 1881 he invented a new dynamo that had zig zag armature windings. Improved by Ferranti these dynamos were used in the first large scale electric generating stations. He also designed fittings including one which converted a ceiling lamp into a reading lamp. More importantly he invented the safety fuse in 1884.
Lord Kelvin stated in a letter to Sir William H. Preece, dated March 16 1886, that the Faure cell battery he had constructed lasted for about 18 months before it was worked to death'. In November 1885 he dispensed with the Faure cells and obtained a battery of Faure-Sellon-Volckmar cells from the Electric power Storage Company. Shortly before his death in 1907 Kelvin stated, at a dinner of the Glasgow Branch of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (November 25 1906), that he believed that the first house on this planet in which the whole lighting was done by electricity was his house in the University of Glasgow'. | Subjects: | Scientific Instruments | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Address: | University of Glasgow,
University Avenue,
G12 8QQ | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Contributor: | Cable from Lord Kelvin's Lecture theatre, now the University Senate Room. Kelvin was a member of the British AssociationÂs committee which had been appointed to report on the feasibility of electric lighting. He was a keen advocate of the principle and h | Identifier: | H-565 |
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