Overhead Railway Electric Generator Room

This is a photograph of the Electric Generator room for the Liverpool Overhead Railway, dated 3 January 1893. The railway was an incredibly innovative structure and had a number of world firsts; when it opened in 1893 it was the first electric elevated railway in the world. It is amazing to think that the introduction of an electricity supply in Liverpool had only taken place in 1878 with a street lamp at the Pier Head, near St Nicholas’s church.