Denny Lane Papers Descriptive List (Ref. U611)

U611/

Letter from Denny Lane, Craven Hotel, Craven Street, London, to Mr. J.O’Mahony, Cork Gas Company, Cork. Lane notes humorously that that he is writing with a ‘pen invented by Satan’. Mainly concerns Lane’s activities in England in investigating electric light. He has met several of the ‘electric men’ including Crompton, Desmond Fitzgerald, Edison’s agent and Schoolbred. Lane has ‘found nothing to change my opinion that the E.L will ever injure gas interests’ and that all the electricians agree except Professor Selvanus of Bristol. Crompton ‘confesses’ that the electric light has no widespread future without some system of storage, while Fitzgerald agreed with Lane’s statement regarding the limits for electricity produced using motive power. He ‘…could nearly stand an examination…in all the dynamo electric machines…’. Mentions Edison’s (Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of electric light bulb) last machine which has not reached England. Describes ‘one of the best American machines’ taking fire at the Crystal Palace and how the electric lights at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet failed, caused by ‘the jealousy of a large Crossley gas engine’. Describes the cost of cells for electric light, weighing 40lbs each and taking 30 such cells to produce ‘a single small light for a few hours’. 4pp 95 30 September 1882 Postcard from Denny Lane, Cologne, Germany, to Mr. J.O’Mahony, Cork Gas Company, 72 South Mall, Cork. Lane has arrived and says that all is well. He will ‘determine what to do tomorrow’. 1 item 96 12 October 1882 Postcard from Denny Lane, Louvain, Belgium, to Mr. J.O’Mahony, Cork Gas Company, 72 South Mall, Cork. Mentions that St. George the Martyrs Parish, Southwark, London, has resolved to oppose all electric light unless advertisers ‘agree to give half of all profits above 7½ per cent…’ 1 item 97 17 April 1883

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