The False Start: British Electrification, 1880-1888

Using abundant London stock Exchange data, we examine in detail the amounts of capital for electrical projects raised in the period 1880-1888, when electricity was first becoming commercialized. We find that initially British investors committed through IPOs unprecedented amounts of capital to electrical ventures, some eight times the amount Thomas Edison was able to raise in New York. This lavish initial funding was egregiously squandered through managerial incompetence and greed, resulting in electrical projects finding a once welcoming market closed, affecting most directly putative electrical engineering enterprises.