The first electric tramway run at Berlin in 1879 was followed by
another at Dusseldorf in 1880, and a third at Paris in 1881. With all of
these the name of Werner Siemens was chiefly associated; but William
Siemens had also taken up the matter, and established at his country
house of Sherwood, near Tunbridge Wells, an arrangement of dynamos and
water-wheel, by which the power of a neighbouring stream was made to
light the house, cut chaff turn washing-machines, and perform other
household duties. More recently the construction of the electric railway
from Portrush to Bushmills, at the Giant's Causeway, engaged his
attention; and this, the first work of its kind in the United Kingdom,
and to all appearance the pioneer of many similar lines, was one of his
very last undertakings.
In the recent development of electric lighting, William Siemens,
whose fame had been steadily growing, was a recognised leader, although
he himself made no great discoveries therein. As a public man and a
manufacturer of great resources his influence in assisting the
introduction of the light has been immense. The number of Siemens
machines and Siemens electric lamps, together with measuring instruments
such as the Siemens electro-dynamometer, which has been supplied to
different parts of the world by the firm of which he was the head, is
very considerable, and probably exceeds that of any other manufacturer,
at least in this country.
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