Tasmania’s Struggle for Power – A.J. Gillies | Voyager Rare Books Maps & Prints

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Tasmania’s Struggle for Power – A.J. Gillies

Short Description

An unusual little soft cover which for some reason commands higher prices than we would expect on the usual websites. We have not followed that route.

Published by Michael and Christine Lillas in Burnie in 1984. Octavo, 169 pages plus unpaginated appendix, some illustration, rather old-fashioned typesetting consistent with it effectively self-published style.

The title may be slightly tongue in cheek as we are talking about electrical power here not political, our preference, rather have the lights than the (insert rhyming slang).

The first good power in Tasmania arrived 1888 when the proprietor, Hogarth, installed a water driven turbine. The idea had come to him following a trip to Scotland. He only got enough electricity for the lights not the machines, but this was still a first on a number of fronts.

The bulk of the book is about the establishment of the first serious power generation at the great lakes and the building of dams and infrastructure to create the head of water. And the subsequent development of the zinc smelting industry which could not have arisen without the former.

The real power behind Tasmania

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