Designed by GEC in the 1930's for the Borough of Lewisham, London, these fabulously ornate Art-Deco electric street lighting lanterns also found some popularity in several towns and cities up and down Britain in the pre-war period

The example featured in this article, was removed from Blackpool, Lancashire in the early 1960's. It had been put to one side with other old historic electric fittings for inclusion in street lighting display within the Street Lighting Department's workshops. However, in more recent times, Blackpool contracted out it's lighting services, and these old lights then became surplus to requirements.

In early 2007, whilst making enquiries about another matter, fellow collector John Thompson was shown this small store of old lanterns by the Manager of the Illumionations Department, where they'd all be placed into store. It was made apparent to John that the space was needed by the Department and that they were looking to dispose of them. John explained his interest in the old electric streetlighting items, and was able to give assurances that good homes could be found for these relics. Eventually permission was granted to allow their release to various collectors including myself. My sincere thanks to John for his hard work in securing these lanterns, and to Blackpool Council for allowing the release of these historic electric lanterns into private collections.

The GEC 'Lewisham' normally used a single 400w MA/V mercury lamp that burned in the cap-up position, as early tubed mercury lamps were unable to burn in the horizontal without eventually destroying themselves. Whilst Blackpool used these single lamped Lewishams, they also used a three lamped version also offered by GEC. These employed the single 400w mercury lamp in the normal cap-up poistion, but also had two 60w tungsten lamps mounted on either side of the mercury lamp to give some degree of colour correction to the green tinted light that was emitted from the mercury lamp.

The lantern donated by Blackpool, was only fitted for a single mercury lamp and has no additional appatures for the colour correction lamps. It's possible that this may have been an earlier lantern that predated the colour corrected Lewishams, or was sited in a street, where colour correction wasn't considered to be necessary.

The last of the Lewishams were removed from the streets of Blackpool in 1964. At the time, pioneering street lighting collector, Dorren Harper, had the foresight to rescue two of these Lewishams, one of which was fitted for colour correction. Dorron seems to think that these were used along on the former in-land tram route to the Marton district of the Town. The tram route to Marton was abandoned in 1962, and presumably the street lighting was upgraded a couple of years later.

Sadly, in later years, the two Lewishams that Dorren had rescued from the depot yard at Blackpool, were destroyed when a shed they were stored in collasped in high winds, crushing the lanterns inside. Although the two Lewishams were damaged beyond repair, Dorren fortuanately retained the reflectors and lampholders from these two damaged lanterns. On discovering that I had a similar ex Blackpool Corporation Lewisham, Dorren, very kindly donated these reflectors to the Collection. Thanks to the efforts of John Thompson, Blackpool MBC, and Dorron Harper, the last known Blackpool Lewisham in existence can now be converted in to the genuine colour-correcting type, as once used in this famous seaside Town.  

At ground level the 'Lewisham' is quite a big lantern, but aside of the cast iron mounting on top of the fitting, the lantern isn't very heavy, as it's constructed from thin gauge brass sheet. The silver paint is the original colour that Blackpool Corporation Street Lighting Dept painted these lanterns in, even though a lot of the town's lighting was painted in green. I've put the car keys into the picture to give an idea of lantern's size.

The Lewisham isn't of a square section, but rather of a rectangular shape, the wider side (with reeded refractor panel) facing faced out across the roadway. I'm not sure how modern lighting engineers would view this boxy old lantern, especially in view of the 'windage' factor and the stresses that would have placed upon the outreach and the column. It doesn't take too much imagination to see these old lanterns being buffeted about by the wind and rain on stormy nights in Blackpool in years gone by.

The only visable damage to the Lewisham is this broken pane of white opaque glass siyuated at the bottom of the lantern in the access door.

The lantern would have originally hung over the road from an out reach, but for display purposes in the depot, a flat plate with a threaded-nipple had been attached for mounting the lantern against a ceiling or an overhead beam. The condensor box is still in place, allthough the outlets have been tapped up, presumably because of the greater danger of water ingress from the sea air, rather than from condensation running down from inside the bracketry above. The four weather-proof capped nuts secure the sqaure cast iron mounting bracket to the top of the lightweight fabricated lantern below.

A simple shot-bolt latch made from hard-wire holds the access door shut. Once undone, the door can be hinged down to gain access to the lantern's interior. The Edison Screw   'Golith' lamp holder and internal enamel reflector plate are in remarkably good condtion. The simple 'tabs' that locate and hold the glass panels into poistion can also be seen.

There can't be very many Lewishams in existence today, but here's two other street lighting collectors who have examples in their collections, however, these aren't ex Blackpool Copor'n Street Lighting Dept' examples:

Awaiting image

The unrestored reflector unit for use with twin colour correcting tungsten lamps that was kindly donated by Dorron Harper.

http://www.eastbournes-street-lighting.co.uk/Pics/Lewish.JPG Fully restored.

http://www.simoncornwell.com/lighting/collect/latest/previous1.htm Awaiting restoration.