The history of electricity.... and the formation of the ECA

Over the years of the 17th and 18th centuries there were a number of discoveries that all started to come together during the 19th century to form the foundation of what we now know as the electrical industry. Early experiments established the principles and as the pieces fell into place the later advances started to come thick and fast.

Van de Graaf generator
After William Gilbert the understanding of static electricity developed further in 1660 when Otto von Guericke invented a crude machine for producing static electricity. It was a ball of sulfur, rotated by a crank with one hand and rubbed with the other. Successors, such as Francis Hauksbee, made improvements that provided experimenters with a ready source of static electricity. Today's highly developed descendant of these early machines is the Van de Graaf generator.

It was around 1675 that Robert Boyle realised attraction and repulsion were mutual and that electric force was transmitted through a vacuum and not until 1729 that Stephen Gray distinguished between conductors and nonconductors. Later, C F Du Fay recognized two kinds of electricity, which Benjamin Franklin and Ebenezer Kinnersley of Philadelphia later named positive and negative.

Understanding of electric currents began with the invention of the Leyden jar in 1745 by Pieter van Musschenbroek to store static electricity, which could be discharged all at once. In 1747 William Watson discharged a Leyden jar through a circuit, and comprehension of the current and circuit started a new field of experimentation.

The truly quantitative study of electricity really began through the work of Henry Cavendish and Charles A Coulomb. By comparing the simultaneous shocks he received from discharging Leyden jars through different materials, Cavendish was able to determine a rather rough and ready measure of the conductivity of these materials. At around the same time, Charles A Coulomb produced a mathematical expression for the attraction of electrified bodies.

Current interests
A new interest in current began with the invention of the battery. Continuous current from batteries smoothed the way for the discovery of G S Ohm's law (1827), relating current, voltage (electromotive force) and resistance and of J P Joule's law of electrical heating (1841). Ohm's law and the rules discovered later by G R Kirchhoff regarding the sum of the currents and the sum of the voltages in a circuit are the basic means of making circuit calculations.

Enter electromagnetism
In 1819 Hans Christian Oersted discovered that a magnetic field surrounds a current-carrying wire and within two years Michael Faraday had devised a crude form of electric motor.

However, practical application of a motor had to wait 10 years until Faraday (and earlier, independently, Joseph Henry) established the principles of the electric generator with which to power the motor. From then on engineers took over from the scientists, and a slow development followed; the first power stations were built 50 years later.

From theory to practice
Once it had become possible to generate electricity rather than hanging around in thunderstorms or rubbing various materials with cloths, the next logical step was to develop equipment to use the electricity. When Joseph Swan made the first carbon filament lamp he was setting the scene for a massive proliferation of different electrical products in the home, commerce and industry. These would be the products that fuelled the growth of the electrical industry and created a pivotal role for the electrical contractor in the modern world.

In the early days there were no electrical contractors so the manufacturers of the products would carry out the wiring work themselves. Before long, though, companies emerged that specialised in this sort of work, operating independently of the manufacturers and the electricity suppliers. These were the first electrical contractors – very soon to be faced with a threat of unfair competition that would re-emerge in various forms for most of the century.

By the early 20th Century there were a number of local associations spread across the country – and considerable correspondence in the trade press about the problems facing electrical contractors. As the need for co-operation grew, so did the will and on 1 February 1901 a meeting was held at Anderton's Hotel in Fleet Street, London.

Attended by contractors from all over the country, the meeting agreed on a need for a national association and set up a committee, chaired by Newcastle contractor Henry Bland, to guide the formation of the National Electrical Contractors Association.

In 1902 a general meeting was held to appoint officers, with William Robert Rawlings as the first President. Governing the Association was the Central Board (to become the Council in 1912) – setting the pattern for a central council of officers to decide the policies of the Association that still exists today.

Flexing muscles
The first target for testing the Association's muscle was the issue of local authorities carrying out subsidised contracting work. In 1903 the London County Council (LCC) was trying to obtain powers to allow the metropolitan borough councils to run installation operations. The Association presented evidence to the House of Lords to show a clear correlation between private contracting and the increased profits of the electricity suppliers.As a result the appropriate clauses were removed from the LCC General Powers Bill.

This first success for the Association established a philosophy for resolving disagreements that still applies today. The use of well reasoned arguments to gain the support of the law have proved effective time and time again during the Association's first 100 years.