Lamps and Lighting
Public lighting was one of the original functions assigned in 1842 to the body that would become the Melbourne City Council. As lighting technology evolved rapidly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so did Melburnians’ expectations .
At first, the Council ordered city publicans to place oil lamps outside their premises: a basic measure so pedestrians could safely navigate the streets at night. From the 1860s, gas lighting expanded the city’s nightlife in theatres, hotels and late-night shops, and the Council’s bills to the Metropolitan Gas Company expanded with it, as city-goers demanded more streets lit more brightly until later in the night. When centrally supplied electric lighting became practical in the late 1880s, the Council moved quickly to establish a power station at Spencer Street so that it could meet the demand for reliable and affordable public lighting. By 1925, hundreds of complaints and requests for better street lighting, alongside reports and proposals from the City Electrical Engineer, arrived at the Town Clerk’s office every year.
This map shows all the locations mentioned in the Town Clerk's subject index for 1925 under the "Lamps and Lighting" heading. Those related to correspondence that you can view are highlighted in blue.
Although there was a trickle of correspondence from residential streets in inner suburbs like Kensington, Carlton and East Melbourne, the map shows two main areas of concern in 1925.
The first was the heart of the city's office, shopping and entertainment districts along Elizabeth Street and Swanston Street. Some of the complaints and requests related to dark spots in laneways and alleys — as lights in the main streets became brighter, the hidden spaces of the city seemed to look darker and, some feared, more attractive to crime and disreputable activity.
But far more of these letters concerned shopkeepers, publicans, entrepreneurs and developers using lights in increasingly innovative and audacious ways to advertise their premises, and from time to time they found themselves too close to Council regulations.
The second main concern for the Council was lighting of the city's main thoroughfares and intersections. A rapid increase in motor traffic, mixed with horses, cable trams, electric trams, and pedestrians, meant the Council and its officers needed to provide sufficient lighting to avoid accidents, while preserving the city's aesthetic appearance. Sometimes, this led to disputes between Council staff.
But most lighting letters were not so dramatic. A routine part of the daily workings of the Council, after passing through the Town Clerk's office, they would be referred on to the Electric Supply Committee and then to the City Electrical Engineer for action, before eventually being discarded. For these letters — as with so many that came to the Council – we can only start to imagine at the concerns of Melburnians in 1925.
Acknowledgements
- Text and annotations: Patrick Gigacz