University of Hong Kong: An Informal History (2 vols)

6. Power and Lighting

Power and Lighting 43 The main po....'el" station of the Univenity in 1917. Professor C. A. M.iddleton Smith, 'Monkey Smith' to his students. The question ofelectrical supply was disposed ofshortly after the University was formally open, by contracting it to the Hong Kong Electric Company pending advice from the first professor of engineering. C. A. M.iddleton Smith duly arrived in 1913. and his proposal was accepted the next year, that with the teaching installation he was assembling the University should go it on its own. Its main power station. pictured below in 1917. stood next to the nullah where the east approach road to me :\Iain Building now leaves Bonham Road. By 1927 Smith's problems had become unsurmountable; lack of proper supervision and control and overloaded cables constituted a real fire hazard, and there was no proper accounting for usage of the energy supply. The supply was then transferred out of academic hands back 10 those of the Hong Kong Electric Company, who laid new cables. r-;;:;;;::::;;::::;;====:;======:;:=~t;;;:;;:::;;::::::;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;~;;;;;;;;;;;;;::;;;;;;;;;•••••••••••l 'Nature's most mysterious and priceless gift to mankind---eJectricity. It is the unseen fluid energy of the amazing new civilization which is transforming Asia', said Smith some years later, 'as already it has transformed Europe and North America. With it we can transmit light. ... What may we expect next?' In 1968 the three high-rise blocks of staff flats on Pokfulam Road were named Middleton Towers after him. 44 Blue-print of an early university lamp-post. ...