The London Hydraulic Power Company was established in 1883 to install a hydraulic power network in London. This expanded to cover most of central London at its peak, before being replaced by electricity, with the final pump house closing in 1977. History The company was set up by an Act of Parliament (the London Hydraulic Power Company Act 1884), sponsored by railway engineer Sir James Allport, to install a network of high-pressure cast iron water mains under London. It merged the Wharves and Warehouses Steam Power and Hydraulic Pressure Company, founded in 1871 by Edward B. Ellington, and the General Hydraulic Power Company, founded in 1882. The network gradually expanded to cover an area mostly north of the Thames from Hyde Park in the west to Docklands in the east. The system was used as a cleaner and more compact alternative to steam engines, to power workshop machinery, lifts, cranes, theatre machinery (including revolving stages at the London Palladium and the London Coliseum, safety curtains at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the lifting mechanism for the cinema organ at the Leicester Square theatre and the complete Palm Court orchestra platform), and the backup mechanism of Tower Bridge. It was also used to supply fire hydrants, mostly those inside buildings. The water, pumped straight from the Thames, was heated in winter to prevent freezing. Pumping stations The pressure was maintained at a nominal (55 BAR) by five hydraulic power stations, originally driven by coal-fired steam engines. These were at: Falcon Wharf Pumping Station at Bankside, east of Blackfriars Bridge on the south bank of the River Thames (opened in 1883) Kensington Court and Millbank (1887) later (1911) replaced by a station in Grosvenor Road Wapping Hydraulic Pumping Station (est. 1890), using the defunct Tower Subway to carry pipes under the Thames (closed on 30 June 1977, the last to be used) City Road Basin on the Regent's Canal in Islington (1893), later used as the Marico furniture factory Renforth Pump House (Rotherhithe, Canada Water) (opened in 1904), now residential accommodation Short-term storage was provided by hydraulic accumulators, which were large vertical pistons loaded with heavy weights. Cross-River Thames mains The mains crossed the River Thames via Vauxhall Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and Southwark Bridge and via the Rotherhithe Tunnel as well as the Tower Subway. Decline The system pumped 6.5 million gallons of water each week in 1893; this grew to 32