A page from the wonderfully detailed Bacon's Atlas of London & Suburbs, this being dated from c1912 by one of the 'special maps' bound in at the front of the atlas. The bulk of London is covered in a series of map sheets at 4" to the mile and is very detailed giving a clear indication of the pre-WW1 city, in its full Victorian and Edwardian splendour but before the massive inter-war expansion into 'Metroland' and similar suburbs.
Bacon's was formed by one George Washington Bacon (1830–1922), an American who set up business in London producing atlases and maps of the capital in about 1870 after a series of business failures. G W Bacon prospered and in c1900 were acquired by the Scottish publishers and cartographers W.& A.K. Johnston of whom they became a subsidiary.
One of the special plates shows the numerous London electricity supply undertakings, mostly private companies although a good few of the Borough councils also ran municipal undertakings. One of the early issues in the electricity supply industry was that many undertakings generated and supplied power at different voltages and phases. This was to become a significant issue that finally forced Government intervention in post-WW1 years as it was hampering the more widespread use of electricity as well as making the manufacturing and use of electrical appliances, both domestic and industrial, difficult. As such many of these companies formed themselves into a 'committee' in c1922 followed by a more binding Joint Electricity Authority in c1925. This largely coalesced around the County of London company, as well as the Underground Group dominated North Met.
This enabled a much larger degree of conformity in supply voltages etc., as well as allowing for the closure of various smaller, early and inefficient generating stations with undertakings being supplied in bulk from either more efficient or the new generation of 'designated' and Grid generating stations.
