Timeline
Alessandro Volta built the world's first electric battery at the University of Pavia, Italy.
Humphry Davy produced electric light from a carbon arc during his electrolysis experiments at the Royal Institute, Great Britain. He later demonstrated more refined models to the public at the Royal Society.
Hans Christian Öersted discovered the link between electricity and magnetism at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Michael Faraday, Director of the Laboratory at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction.
Henry Dangar, Assistant surveyor to explorer John Oxley, visited the Peel Valley looking for a site for the Australian Agricultural Company.
Tamworth first appeared on Western maps.
The world’s first electric telegraph commenced operation between Euston station and Camden Town, on the London and Birmingham Railway.
Tamworth was gazetted as a town. Population East of the river is counted as 250.
Tamworth linked to the Eastern colonies via the Electric Telegraph
The population of the town is 654.
Tamworth’s first Post Office completed.
22nd of October Tamworth connected to the International Telegraph Network via Australia`s Overland Telegraph (Adelaide to Darwin).
17th March, Government Gazette No 85, Tamworth was proclaimed as a Borough. Population is 3000.
19th August, the first street light, an oil lamp, erected outside the Tamworth Post Office
The world`s first electric street lighting – the Avenue de l'Opera, Paris, where Russian engineer, Paul Jablochkoff installed 16 “electric candles”. (A form of carbon arc light). Two oil lamps erected on the Peel River Bridge.
Two oil lamps erected on the Peel River Bridge.
18th December, at Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, Joseph Swan invented the world’s first successful incandescent light bulb – a carbon filament vacuum lamp.
15th October, the first railway train arrived at West Tamworth.
1879 Thomas Edison and Joseph Wilson Swan patent the carbon-thread incandescent lamp. It lasted 40 hours. The next year Edison produced a 16-watt lightbulb that lasted 1500 hours.
15th August – 15th November first International Exposition of Electricity Paris. Palais de l’Industrie, champs-Elysees.
26th September, first electric street lighting (arc lights) in England at Godalming, Surrey.
In June, the Tamworth Gas and Coke Company commenced supplying 25 gas street lights under contract to the Tamworth Borough Council.
Mayor E.C.Hunt, Ald. W.J.Smith, and George Hooke of the Tamworth Observer advocated the merits of electric street lighting the year before, but the majority of aldermen felt safer with the well-known gas system.
4th September 1882, Edison’s central power station commenced at 257 Pearl Street, NY supplying 59 households with 400 lamps.
Tamworth established the first Municipal electric street lighting system in Australia. It commenced operation on the 9th November 1888.
On the 18th January, Mayor William Frederick Tribe had signed a contract with Messrs Harrison and Whiffen, of Sydney, representing R.E.Crompton& Co. of Chelmsford, England, for an electric light plant.
12th November, Orlando William Brain commenced as Tamworth’s first electrical engineer. (Trained by Crompton).
Population about 4,000.
19th February, Tamworth telephone exchange opened with 34 subscribers.
8th July, Sydney introduces electric street lighting.
Electricity supply is extended to homes and businesses and the Power Station is extended.
Before it was connected to the State Grid in 1958, Tamworth’s Marius Street powerstation supplied electricity across the North West of NSW – to Manilla (from 1927), Nemingha, Kootingal (from 1930), Quirindi (from 1941), Dungowan, Woolomin, Nundle (from 1945) Barraba, Gunnedah, Boggabri, Narrabri (from 1947), Murrurundi (1948) Inverell (from 1950), Armidale (from 1951), Moree (from 1952) and Stanborough and Bellata (from 1954).
The population of Tamworth in the 1947 census was 12,071 persons (there is no data for 1946).
9th November, Centenary of Municipal Electric Street Lighting in Australia at Tamworth and opening of the Tamworth Powerstation Museum