The American inventor Thomas Edison is claimed to have said that to invent ‘you need a good imagination and a pile of junk’. It would have been easy for excavators working in William Street, Brisbane, to see these tubes as junk and throw them away. But these tubes are of World Significance as some of […]
Nowadays we have smart meters that monitor and, in some cases, remotely measure and control our power use. In the 1890s, as the availability of electrical power became more common, two of the most successful electrical power meters measuring power usage were the Edison and the Aron electricity meters. The Edison meter had two copper […]
With most of our appliances requiring power, new houses have multiple power points. If you’ve ever lived in an older, unrenovated building the frustration of not enough power points is very real. Electricity was first introduced into Australia for lighting. Stoves burnt fuel such as wood, heating was an open fire or oil heaters, while […]
The use of comic or cartoon characters in advertising is well established. Mr Safety Pin, the comic character shown in this poster, was introduced in the early 1950s through a NSW government campaign designed to educate families on electrical safety in the home. When electricity was first introduced, it was primarily used for lighting. As […]
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