The World of Electrical & Security over 60 Years

    Most people these days seem to accept the current age of technology as the norm. We clap our hands and the lights come on, we walk into a room and the lights come on, we touch a plate on the wall and the lights come on. The list is endless as the technology improves. We can control our homes from our smart phones and I-pads. We can see each other at the other side of the world using SKYPE or Face time. No longer can we hide our feelings by adjusting the tone of voice used because your face displays all.

    There was a time when electricity was not available, no lights, no TV, no flicking switches to boil a kettle or do the cooking. No radio as we know it today, the heating was non existent, saving a coal fire, electric blankets? out of the question. How on earth did people manage?

    Burglar alarms were unheard of unless you had a jewelers or a bank or a mansion. Fire alarms consisted of a hand wound bell. access control was done by a man and a door lock. In fact, we were quite in front of some nations, we had found a use for the by-product of coal called town gas, presumably as it was only available in towns.

    We were in the industrial age where machinery was belt driven from overhead shafts which were in turn driven by either steam or water. In some factories a small amount of electricity was generated by steam engine to run dim lighting systems, the other use of the steam engine to rotate drive shafts or pumps.

    Unfortunately, I was not part of this era, to see the engineering capabilities that brought us the machinery that we now choose to discard for efficiency purposes and dare I say greener issues. The machinery that used to transport the counties needs and manufacture it. The machinery that pumped water out of the mines and shifted tons of waste matter in places like London. The age of steam, what an excitement it would have been to see the first steam locomotive, the development of the simple stationary engine, what a marvel of the simple science of expansion and contraction.

But, this is where it all started............

This page was last updated on 10/26/14.