London Power Company
[2] It also regulated their dividends, required funds to be set up to transfer the companies' assets to the London and Home Counties Joint Electricity Authority, required companies to notify the authority of any proposal to spend capital exceeding £5,000, to dispose of any electricity generated in excess of that obligated to customers, and to carry out the technical integration scheme for the district.
Construction of Battersea A Power Station was started in 1929 and completed in 1934; supplying electricity to Central and West London, it had an installed capacity of 251.7 MW.
[2][9] The Second World War delayed the start of construction of Battersea B Power Station until 1945 and it was not completed until 1955, seven years after nationalisation.
[3] In January 1937 the Charing Cross Company acquired five other undertakings to further coordinate the distribution of electricity in their areas of London.
Sir Leonard Pearce was engineer-in-chief of the LPC from 1926, and designed Deptford B and Battersea power stations.
[16] SS Alexander Kennedy (I) was a 1,315 GRT flatiron launched in June 1932 by the Burntisland Shipbuilding Company of Fife, Scotland.
[14] She was named after the electrical engineer Sir Alexander Kennedy (1847–1928), who held a consultancy contract with the LPC.
On 22 February 1945 she was in convoy BTC-76[17] en route from Barry in South Wales to London when the Type VIIC/41 U-boat U-1004 torpedoed and sank her southeast of Falmouth.
SS John Hopkinson was a 1,314 GRT flatiron and Tyndall's sister ship, launched in October 1932 by S.P.
SS Ferranti was a 1,315 GRT flatiron and Alexander Kennedy's sister ship, launched in October 1932 at Burntisland.
[14] She was named after Sebastian de Ferranti (1864–1930), who designed Deptford East Power Station in 1887 for the London Electricity Supply Corporation.
On 8 June 1955 she was involved in a collision with the 7,602 GRT Victory Ship SS American Jurist off Greenhithe in the North Sea.
In October 1942 Francis Fladgate was a member of an FN-series coastal convoy that had assembled in the North Sea off Southend to sail for Grangemouth.
[20] At about 0155 hrs on 8 October, 5.2 miles (8.4 km) off Cromer in the North Sea she struck SS Varøy, a Norwegian coaster in the same convoy.
SS George Balfour was a 1,568 GRT collier and Charles Parsons' sister ship, launched by S.P.
[18] She was named after Sir (Standen) Leonard Pearce (1873–1947), who was engineer-in-chief of the LPC from 1926 and designed both Deptford B and Battersea power stations.
On 11 January 1940 in the Bristol Channel she crossed the path of MV Queen Adelaide and failed to give way.
[22] SS Sir Joseph Swan (I) was a 1,571 GRT collier and Leonard Pearce's sister ship, launched by S.P.
On 4 September 1940 a German E-boat attacked and sank her in the North Sea off Hemsby, killing 18 of her crew.
Nisbet and the Tanfield Steamship Company of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,[24] who named her after the village of New Lambton, County Durham.
New Lambton was torpedoed and sunk on the same day and in the same part of the North Sea as Sir Joseph Swan (see above).
[24] SS Ambrose Fleming was a 1,222 GRT flatiron launched at Burntisland in February 1941 and completed in April.
[14] She was named after the electrical engineer Sir John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945), who invented the thermionic valve.
Ambrose Fleming had a very short life, for on 28 April 1941 a German E-boat torpedoed and sank her off Cromer.
