OXFORD Power Station, by the Thames at Osney, produced electricity for the city and elsewhere for 77 years.

The opening of the works on Saturday, June 18 1892 was a grand civic and university affair – and was even celebrated in verse.

The site, on the east side of the river just below Botley Road bridge, was chosen as it gave easy access for coal to be delivered by barge or rail and provided abundant water. The newly-formed Oxford Electric Company invited 200 leading figures of civic and academic Oxford to the opening ceremony at the plant.

“After the loyal toast and a welcome from company chairman Mr J Irving Courtenay, the mayor, Alderman F W Ansell, flicked a switch. The effect was to illuminate the whole building, evoking considerable applause,” according to a contemporary account of the opening.

Then guests sat down to dinner in the dynamo room, to the accompaniment of music from Herr Slapoffski’s Band. Noise from the engines generating the power drowned out some of the after-dinner speeches and there was disappointment too in the city centre when the switch-on of street lamps was delayed.

Streets were “thronged to witness the lighting of the arc lamps” but “there was a hitch and it was 10 o’clock before the current was switched on, by which time many people had gone home”.

The station was built on the site of the historic Osney Abbey, which flourished until the reign of Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries.

With an output of 640 kilowatts, enough to light 15,000 lamps, it initially supplied electricity to 12 colleges, 39 public buildings and 337 shops, offices and homes in the city. A unit of electricity cost eight pence (3p). The generating plant was extended five times before 1905 and sub-stations were opened in other parts of the city as demand for electricity increased.

With nationalisation in 1948, the station came under the control of the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and the Southern Electricity Board.

The 1956 Clean Air Act signalled the end of smoky fumes billowing over Osney and in 1963, the coal-fired station was converted to oil to reduce pollution.

By then, however, the end was in sight. The CEGB policy was to close small, old, less efficient power stations in favour of new ones with greater capacity.

The Oxford plant was called on to generate power only at times of peak demand, such as in winter.

It produced its last electricity on March 13, 1969. The 15,000 kilowatts it fed into the National Grid was said to be “insignificant and uneconomic”, not even enough to keep the Cowley car factories going.

Some of the 13 staff still there on the final day were transferring to the new Didcot Power Station, while others were taking redundancy.

The building was later sold to Oxford University for £77,000 and became part of its engineering faculty. Recently, it has been used as a museum store. The latest plans are for it to become another premises for the Said Business School.

* Any memories of the power station? Write and let me know.