Page 84 - Bulletin 11 2007

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“Dims even the Moon” is clearly a poetic reference to the eclipse, which was
approximately 44% of the diameter of the moon. The electric light used by Mr Charlton

Wollaston was an early arc light. The arc light was at that time still in the
developmental stage and a steady light could not be maintained. Twenty years later the

arc light had become a commercial success. Mr Donald MacDonald arrived from

England in 1881, seeking a market for the “Brush” arc light. He erected six lights in the
dome of the Cape Town Railway Station. On the day the station was first lit, 12 October

1881, the Kimberley Town Council accepted MacDonald’s offer for street lighting.
MacDonald also erected sixteen arc lights in the Table Bay Harbour at the same time as

the Kimberley street lights. (Fig. 2.5). These were burning successfully from April
1882, whereas the Kimberley lights were not accepted by the Town Council until

September.

In the same year (1882) Thomas Edison, the celebrated American inventor, sent Mr

Hortsek to Cape Town to install his “recently perfected” incandescent lamps in the

Banqueting Hall of the Goede Hoop Lodge. (Figs. 2.6 & 2.7). This hall was occupied by
the House of Assembly from 1854 to 1884. The Colonial Parliament had requested

Edison to install his lights as an experiment to help them decide whether to introduce
these lights into the new Houses of Parliament. The hall was publicly lit by electricity

for the first time on 10 May 1882. The Cape Times of 11 May 1882 reported: “The
House was illuminated by the beautifully bright and steady glow of the forty-four lights

placed along the walls. ...... There was a large attendance of the public in the House and

much satisfaction was expressed alike by members and spectators with the effect
produced by the bright, soft and penetrating light.” As a result of the success of these

lights the Government decided to install electric lights instead of gas lighting in the new
Houses of Parliament, opened in 1885.

All of these lights were powered by small individual lighting plants. The capacity of the

steam engines used to drive them was less than that of a modern baby car, such as the

“Smart Car.” In 1888 the Table Bay Harbour Board decided to build a “central station”
which would be far more efficient than a number of individual lighting plants. The new