Part of my interest in lighting comes from my interest of the past and post war reconstruction of Britain. Britain was trying to move forward from the war and the decades of uncertainty that preceded WW2. Plans were drawn up for several "New Towns" that would aid the reconstruction effort and it was hoped provide the "Utopian" future. Of course it never quite worked out that way...
Lighting wise, this was an age when steel was in short supply so concrete columns were often used and fluorescent lighting was coming of age for streetlighting. This coupled with the post war enthusiasm for design in general, rather than just functionality, and the sheer demand for new lighting equipment to replace damaged or worn out pre-war installations, meant that this was an exciting time for lighting.
The building of the New Towns meant installations could be designed from scratch and the latest designs (or even bespoke designs in the case of Stevenage) were used.
Chris M has already posted these pictures of Harlow:
On the same theme:
Around the turn of the new year was a Panorama special showing several of their features from 1959. The first section about the new town of Harlow caught my eye, so went back over it and grabbed a couple of stills. Rather blurry, but...
...have you ever seen a post-top lantern that big before? Looks like it used 5-foot fluorescent tubes, any idea who could have produced it? Almost looks like a Gamma One, but bigger and with an enormous wide hat. I have seen a picture of a European lantern that rivals that one in size, don`t recall the manufacturer in that case, but you would have thought a new British town would use British-produced lanterns in the 1950s. Almost certainly not still there though, wonder how long it remained?
Some further digging on the internet has uncovered this clearer shot:
Harlow c1960.It appears that this massive style of fluorescent lantern was used elsewhere in the town as
this picture shows.
At the
railway station Siemens Kuwait fluorescent lanterns were in use.
.
Crawley was another New Town, it extensively used post top fluorescent lanterns mostly GEC types with 2ft tubes for residential lighting. Another collector I know has luckly saved several of these. However it appears that Crawley also used the similar type of massive post top fluorescent as Harlow in the
High Street.An example of other fluorescent lanterns used is shown
here.It appears that
Basildon also used large fluorescent post tops but these don't appear as large as Crawley or Harlow. They may use 4ft rather than 5ft tubes.
Meanwhile Stevenage had further unusual lighting - what looks to be a
top entry swan neck mounted horizontal fluorescent lantern.
Corby on the other hand went for massive
twin horizontal fluorescents. Images show these lanterns were installed as early as 1955 and were still around in 1965 so may have well lasted into the fuel crisis of the 1970s.