2000 Story of the MEA

By Terry Cringle

Historically the most remarkable thing about the Manx Electricity Authority, the MEA, is that its gestation period was so long, the best part of a century by the most extreme reckoning. The disinterested but reasonable observer would have quickly come to the conclusion, at every stage of development, that a small British offshore island with its own Government and a population hovering around 50,000 but with an increasingly evident potential for considerable growth in the second half of the 20th Century, required only one bespoke electricity generation and distribution undertaking. In fact this has been the read and often repeated recommendation of people in a position to give expert opinion. But they were steadfastly ignored until 1984, when the MEA was born.

The trouble was that politics, especially Manx politics, do not work solely on the recommendation of people in politics. Other more complex internal forces were at work. As a result the story of electric light and power in the Isle of Man is a saga of heroic proportions and, if the expression can be forgiven in the context, an illuminating commentary on the way things were, and perhaps still are, done on this Gem of God’s Earth.

The problem was all down - and again forgive the expression - to a power struggle between the Isle of Man Government and Douglas Corporation. That there should have been such a struggle is understandable enough. But the length of time it went on is not. After all, you had to be extraordinarily obdurate not to see that the establishment of the MEA was inevitable.

It is fair to say that the generation of electricity in the Island for the benefit of the public started in 1893 when the Isle of Man Tramways and Electric Power Company started up in an era of vigorous tourism development fuelled by the boldness and opportunism of Victorian entrepreneurs. What we now know as the Manx Electric Railway had to rely on setting up its own generating plant at Derby Castle.

At that time the Douglas Gaslight Company was the main public power source for the lighting of streets, houses and businesses, a situation which still had some years to run. But in 1893 electricity began to show what it could do.

The Manx Electric Railway (MER) tramway extended from Douglas to Laxey where further generating capacity was added in 1894. After that came the construction of the Snaefell Mountain Railway, opened in 1895 by the ever-confident Victorian engineers and businessmen, and then the extension of the line to Ramsey. By this time electricity generation was on show for all to see. It was a rich and versatile resource and the MER’s output began to be tapped into by outside domestic and commercial customers.

This was by no means unplanned. The name of the original Isle of Man Tramways and Electric Power Company indicates that its ambitions reached far beyond just running a railway.

But it took time for gas to be displaced as the wider source of public lighting and power. It was not until 1923 that Douglas Corporation saw the way ahead and, in a virtual rejection of gas, committed itself to establishing the Island’s first all-embracing public electricity supply, at least for the Island’s capital.

If it had not been for the intervention of the First World War in 1914-18 it might well have happened sooner. Unhappily four years of war and suffering had a devastating effect on the Island, socially and economically, from which it took a long time to recover.

The Corporation’s commitment to electricity took place after a fair amount of dispute in the town council, whose members in those days were large men of business with their own personal interests to consider and argue for. Also, Douglas Gaslight Company was a considerable presence and not prepared to give way easily to electricity.

But eventually the Corporation built and commissioned in 1923 its first power station. It was erected on North Quay, defiantly confronting the great gasworks emplacement on the other side of the harbour on South Quay.

It was and still is a handsome building of traditional Manx stone and it is now a listed building. Also, for all that it soon became inadequate to meet demand and was decommissioned in 1951, today it has had a dramatic renaissance. But more of that later.

The newspaper accounts of 1923 speak of "…the great engine in the Municipal Electricity Station was set in motion and a brighter Douglas was born." Within two years the South Quay plant’s generating capacity had to be increased to meet the town’s demand. Douglas needed a new and bigger power station and it was built at Pulrose and commissioned in 1929. The town now became fully electrified.

But not so the rest of the Island and the Manx Government had to recognise and meet its national responsibilities. In 1933 Tynwald set up the Isle of Man Electricity Board and this began to buy a bulk supply from Pulrose and North Quay. Taking this to the rest of the Island, to the most remote rural areas in particular was not going to be as relatively easy as lighting up the compact urban area of Douglas. This was where the power struggle between the Government and the Corporation began - with absolutely no notion in thinking that what was needed was an all-Island undertaking.

It eventually became what might be described in other areas of human conflict as a turf war.

The first sign of conflict stemmed from the cost to the Isle of Man Electricity Board (IOMEB) of the Corporation supply. The Corporation had the whip hand, which it must have relished. The answer of the Electricity Board was to set up in business for itself, which it did quickly enough.

In 1951 the Board commissioned its own power station at Peel. The Isle of Man, small as it was, now had two separate electricity undertakings who had no thoughts of what is now known as jumping into bed together. Contemporary documents tell the story in more detail.

But first let us consider the man who can be credited with shouldering the first professional responsibility for electrifying Douglas and then the rest of the Island. Bertram Kelly was the first Douglas Borough Electrical Engineer, appointed in 1922, the year the Douglas Corporation Light and Power Act completed its passage through Tynwald. This enabled him to supervise the building and equipping of the North Quay power station.

His career was one of expert and visionary service to the Douglas electricity undertaking. He was a true pioneer and when he retired in 1947 the town council’s electricity committee, who seemed to be men of business ability, announced that during Mr Kelly’s service the undertaking’s generating capacity rose from its original 410 kilowatts to 11,541 kilowatts and the number of consumers had risen from 424 in 1924 to 6,844 - who included the IOMEB.

Also, unusually for a civic enterprise, the undertaking was self-supporting and highly profitable. In the year Mr Kelly retired it contributed £3000 to the town rate fund.

Mr Kelly was a remarkable man by any definition. After leaving the secular and high technical environment of Douglas Corporation Electricity Department he went into the Church and was ordained. The Rev Mr Kelly became Vicar of Braddan and served the parish until he retired for the second time in 1964. He died in 1976 at the age of 92.

What his Christian view of the opposite-locking of Corporation and Government on the electrification of the Isle of Man is not known, which is a pity. But we do have the benefit of the views of his successor, Mr Charles Anderson. The archives of the MEA contain two major reports by him.

The first is dated April 1963, when he had been 16 years in the job, and it starts in uncompromising fashion: "The development of the electricity supply in the Isle of Man has been subject to considerable political influence in which the Judiciary is also represented. The present unsatisfactory situation as regarded electricity supply for the Island as a whole has, in general, been brought about by differences of opinion in policy between local and insular government authorities. Very sound advice has been obtained from time to time from eminent authorities in the form of commissions, etc., but few, if any, of their recommendations have ever been implemented."

It was, perhaps, as far as he dared go in criticising his political masters.

The report goes on to reveal what had been going on. It tells how, in October 1926, when it was clear that the North Quay power station was not going to be capable of meeting the growing demand in Douglas, the Corporation had to ask Tynwald’s Local Government Board (now the Department of Local Government) for leave to borrow the money to increase generating capacity.

The LGB, perhaps looking ahead to the Government taking responsibility for electrifying the rest of the Island, stalled the Corporation’s move.

What it chose to do was enlist the services of a Colonel T C Ekins, Chief Inspector of the Electricity Commissioners, which appears to have been a United Kingdom body, to look into the situation in the Island and make recommendations - to the Government, which rather side-lined the Corporation.

Colonel Ekins said more generating capacity was definitely needed but North Quay was not the site for it. He recommended the building of a new power station on a new site in the vicinity of Douglas - with the object of providing an all-Island supply.

The Corporation looked askance at this, seeing it as Government interference in a prized municipal operation of great success. It turned down Colonel Ekins’ recommendations. This set the pattern for the future.

The Government came back by way of the appointment by the Lieutenant Governor of the day, Sir Claude Hill, of a Mr J A Robertson who was to carry out further investigation. In 1927 he backed Colonel Ekins’ views and went further. He identified a suitable site for a new power station - Pulrose.

Mr Anderson reports that the Corporation quickly went for this option and launched itself into building the power station, which opened there in 1929. But - and he certainly had the courage of his convictions - he declared it "regrettable" that the recommendations of Colonel Ekins and Mr Robertson that Pulrose should be planned in terms of providing an effective all-Island supply "were not, by any means, fully implemented, as subsequent events have proved them to be very sound."

He says no serious attempt was made to fully convert, as recommended, from DC to AC distribution as soon as possible. It did not actually happen until 1949 when it was forced upon the Corporation by overloading and the difficulty of getting DC appliances, which involved the Corporation in considerable cost.

As for Pulrose providing an all-Island supply from one location, Mr Anderson points to the fact that the Corporation had installed only one 1000 kilowatt turbo-generator instead of the two recommended by Colonel Ekins and Mr Robertson.

He says pointedly that their all-Island supply recommendations did not take effect until 1933 when Tynwald set up the IOMEB and in 1950, as a consequence, the Peel power station was commissioned.

By now the pattern of conflict between Government and Corporation, and the sidestepping of expert opinion from outside the Island, was set. Also the Government, with its greater powers, was putting increasing pressure on the Corporation, knowing that in the long run it could out-gun Douglas town hall.

In 1928 the Government’s next move was the appointment by the Governor of an independent commission of inquiry. This recommended the setting up of "an Authority" to supply the Island outside Douglas by taking a bulk supply from the Corporation. The commission said the choice lay between a non-political Electricity Board or a concession to a private company.

The Government came down on the establishment of the IOMEB - with political content, members of Tynwald. The Government now had a power base from which to conduct operations against the Corporation.

Mr Anderson records that in 1937 the IOMEB began saying that the charges for the bulk supply from Douglas were "not equitable". In other words, the IOMEB’s rural and out-town consumers, served by a much larger and more costly distribution system than Douglas Corporation’s were paying much more for their electricity that the consumers of Douglas.

This was to prove an area of hot dispute right up until the formation of the MEA. But it started by going to court. In 1940 - the year of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain and the spectre of Nazi conquest - the IOMEB brought an action against the Corporation in the High Court over the bulk supply charges. Deemster Farrant decided that the dispute had to be settled by arbitration.

This led to some kind of negotiated agreement between the parties, but it did not last. Both were dissatisfied, with the Corporation seeking to go back to the original arrangement.

Mr Anderson’s account of events continues to be meticulous. In 1946 the Governor, Sir Geoffrey Bromet, appointed another commission of inquiry, hoping like Sir Claude Hill to achieve a unified all-Island supply system. In 1948 the commission recommended the establishment of a new authority "to purchase from the Douglas Corporation and the Isle of Man Electricity Board the whole of the assets now used ...."

Mr Anderson comments austerely: "Here again the recommendations were for the most part ignored".

During 1948 there was what Mr Anderson describes as "abnormal" increase in demand. The Corporation recognised that there needed to be an extension of the Pulrose Power Station and sought the Governor’s approval. It was refused - because the IOMEB had now decided to build a power station of its own, at Peel, and go it alone. The notion of a single all-Island undertaking receded even further.

Mr Anderson is again harshly critical. The IOMEB’s plan was debated in Tynwald in March 1st 1949. His report says bluntly that during the debate "statements were made and figures quoted by the political members of the Electricity Board which, to say the least, were most misleading. It seems very remarkable that, in reaching a decision on such a vitally important matter, no independent expert advice was sought. The Board’s proposal was entirely against the principle of one central power station as recommended by all previous advisors and commissions but, in spite of this, the disastrous decision was reached by Tynwald to allow the Board to proceed with the installation of a second power station."

Of course Mr Anderson is speaking as a servant of the Corporation. But it was fair to criticise the Government for moving even further away from a unified operation. Also, the blame had to be shared by his own political masters. It took two not to tango in this case for all that they had plenty of experts to show them how to do it.

The loss of the IOMEB’s business when Peel came on stream hit the Corporation undertaking hard. In simple terms the Corporation now had over capacity in generation. It was entitled to and gained cash compensation from the Government, but not enough, at least by Mr Anderson’s reckoning.

And yet the Governor, if not Tynwald, was reluctant to give up on achieving the rational course of action. Yet another independent commission of inquiry was appointed and, yet again, its report, issued in 1955, said there should only be one electricity authority taking over all the properties, assets and rights of the Corporation and Government undertakings.

This had some effect: the Corporation and Tynwald were perhaps now beginning to recognise the inevitability of amalgamation. The Corporation agreed on the setting up of some kind of unified authority and said so to the Governor. But Mr Anderson tells us that "nothing further was heard of the matter" until a few days before a meeting of Tynwald in 1957, on May 21st, when amalgamation was placed on the Court’s agenda paper.

The terms of the resolution, however, were not exactly what the Corporation had in mind and the Douglas MHK’s won an amended resolution saying that the commission’s report should be approved in principle and the Governor be requested to introduce amalgamation legislation. The words "in principle" left the door wide open to further dispute, and it came.

In October 1957 the Government sent the Corporation a draft amalgamation Bill and asked for comments. The Corporation did not like the Bill. Mr Anderson reports: "In the circumstances the Corporation informed the Attorney General that it was reconsidering its attitude towards the proposed legislation." He adds, astonishingly: "It is understood that the Isle of Man Electricity Board was also against amalgamation."

Nobody, 34 years on from the day when "a brighter Douglas was born" on South Quay, was any further forward.

But at least the two sides kept talking Mr Anderson says that "in view of the impasse" the Corporation approached the IOMEB with a proposal for setting up a "Joint Advisory Committee". This was agreed and, as a result, the Governor agreed that the amalgamation Bill should be deferred sine die. This was endorsed by Tynwald in April 1958.

The Joint Advisory Committee worked pretty well. Interconnection between Pulrose and Peel power stations made it possible to cooperate in the beneficial control of generation and supply across the Island. Equipment and spares were interchanged. Mr Anderson comments, with his usual austerity: "The Joint Advisory Committee has been largely responsible for a marked improvement in the relations between the two Authorities which are infinitely better than at any time in the past, and it will be regrettable if political interference is allowed to destroy the good relations so painfully acquired."

His disapproval of political shenanigans is almost palpable.

His report shows that the Corporation Electricity Department had a difficult time of things after the Peel Power Station was built. Its large reserve fund accumulated over the years was used up keeping Douglas electricity bills low. But conversion of Pulrose from steam to diesel generation began to reduce operating costs. At the same time Mr Anderson observes, with barely restrained satisfaction: "On the other hand the Electricity Board operating costs are tending to increase due to the installation of a further power station at Ramsey and the age of most of the plant at Peel."

Mr Anderson ends his report – dated 1963 remember – by restating his conviction that the Island should have, in the long term, one electricity authority and one central power station. His further comments are of technical and historical interest:

"Failing some rapid development in small nuclear power plant, the central power station would, of necessity, have to be a steam station with boilers preferably oil-fired. The ideal location for the station would be on the coast near Douglas where seawater could be used for condensing and with facilities for delivery of heavy fuel oil from tankers.

"It is very doubtful, however, whether this proposal would be economical during the few years … It would appear to be more economical to delay amalgamation until about 1970 when large-scale replacement of generating plant will be necessary. This could then become the nucleus of a large central power station."

Mr Anderson, and who can blame him, could not foresee the future clearly. He could not see the end of cheap oil, the changing public attitude towards the nuclear power industry, and the growth of the NIMBY factor. But his report states the events and attitudes of his day with admirable clarity. Clearly he was a true professional with a vision of what he believed was right for the Isle of Man and the professional’s impatience with politicians.

And he does have more to say in his second report, this one dated November 1966 and submitted only months before his retirement at the age of 65.

It is in the nature of his farewell message to the Corporation’s Electricity Committee and he sets out what had happened since he took up his post 1947, what he called "remarkable progress".

He records that the capital assets of the undertaking are up from £560,000 to more than £2 million, units of electricity sold are up from 125,000 to 500,000, the annual revenue is up from £125,000 to £500,000, the reserve fund is up from £44,000 to £106,000, the average price of electricity changed from 1½d (1p) to 2.42d, consumers are up from 6,864 to 10,222 – and staff numbers have risen from 115 to 135 indicating a near four-fold increase in productivity per person.

And all this says Mr Anderson, in spite of the hard times for the undertaking detailed in his earlier report.

But he is cautious about amalgamation. He favours it but only when "a central steam power station with an extensive transmission network becomes an economical proposition. In the present circumstances amalgamation would certainly be to the disadvantage of the consumers in the Douglas area of supply."

As before, however, he supports the Joint Electricity Authority and the benefits it has brought.

Mr Anderson goes into great technical detail with his views on the way ahead in relation to distribution. He also considers administration and calls for the mechanisation of the Corporation’s accounting systems adding: "In this connection the mechanical systems in operation at the IoM Electricity Board should be considered in view of the possibility of amalgamation at some future date."

He also concerns himself with the tariff differential between the Corporation and Government undertakings. "With amalgamation at some time in the future, attempts should be made to bring our tariffs and those of the IoM Electricity Board on to the same basis. As at present there are wide differences in principle and it will be very difficult to find a common basis in all types of tariffs."

Mr Anderson is spot-on here. Equalisation of tariffs was to be the last battlefield on the road to amalgamation.

And so he steps out of the picture. What now of the IOMEB? The MEA archives hold a report entitled "Electrifying an Island" written – by hand – by Mr J P Tucker, the first Chief Engineer and Secretary of the Board who took up his duties in January 1933.

He writes, in a neat hand, that after arranging to take a bulk supply from the Corporation power station at Pulrose work had to start on the task of distributing this supply to other parts of the Island, outside Douglas. Basically it involved erecting about 70 miles of 33,000 volt overhead line and switchgear.

"The average distance between the poles carrying the Extra High Tension conductors was 400 feet which involved over 900 poles," says Mr Tucker. "But before erection work could start wayleave permission had first to be obtained from over 300 owners and occupiers of land on which the poles were to be erected.

"Obtaining permission was far from easy, especially as many of the landowners referred these wayleave applications to their solicitors. Sometimes these negotiations were very frustrating, and at other times amusing.

"I can still recall vividly calling for a wayleave at a farmstead near Laxey. The farmer was out in his fields his wife was at home nursing a very young baby. She thrust the baby into my arms and said: ‘give me that bit of paper. I’ll take it to him and get him to sign.’ And she did."

Mr Tucker’s arrival in the Isle of Man and his introduction to the fledgling IOMEB must have been daunting "There was no office and no staff, "he records. "I worked from a desk at the end of a passage in Government house."

(In fact this was more likely Government Office in Douglas but Mr Tucker can be forgiven).

He continues: "My first two appointments were a typist and a young lad to assist with the preparation of the wayleave application forms. Soon I set up an office in a terraced house and took in two engineering assistants and an accountant."

In the first three months of 1933 Mr Tucker and the IOMEB opened the tenders from contractors bidding to carry out the electrification programme and orders were given for the work to proceed. Mr Tucker says, with admirable coolness: "As yet the Board has no money to pay bills. So now my immediate task was to prepare a prospectus inviting the public to subscribe to the Board’s invitation to raise £60,000 at six per cent. This task was a bit outside my engineering training but with the help of Ramsey Bignal Moore, the IoM Attorney General, and Eric Watterson, Treasurer to the IoM Bank, we did it and the invitation was over-subscribed."

It was obvious to people with investment capital at their disposal that electricity was a good thing to be in.

Mr Tucker continues his story: "The Board’s initial target was to inaugurate a supply of electricity to Ramsey, Peel, Port Erin, Port St Mary, Castletown and Laxey by August 1933. This was a formidable task to achieve within seven months. However, helped by the whole-hearted cooperation of the IoM Steam Packet Company and the IoM Steam and Electric Railways, of whom special transport facilities were needed, and by the dedication of the contractors, our target was achieved.

"In all this I must mention that the whole of the unskilled labour on site was recruited in the Island. So a tribute must be paid to the facility with which these men adapted themselves to work in which little or none had ever previously been carried our in the Island."

The switch-on of supply to the towns was inaugurated by the Governor, Sir Claude Hill. "That evening was a great event for many homes, shops and offices in the six towns where their light from candles, oil lamps and, in some cases, small private installations, were abandoned in favour of a public supply of electricity.

"At the time of inauguration it was hoped that it would ensure a supply to the inhabitants of the Island at the lowest rates possible, especially as the Board’s authority did not permit an accumulation of profit. The whole scheme was considered as a cooperative electricity scheme in which everyone in the Island should regard themselves as having a financial interest and an inducement to accept the convenience of that cheap electricity as and when it came within their reach. Development and the number of consumers continued to grow apace."

Mr Tucker’s hand-written testament makes no mention of amalgamation, perhaps because it was not really an issue when "by 1936 I considered that the Board’s main targets had been achieved and so in May 1936 I resigned my position to take the position of Borough Electrical Engineer and General Manager of the Borough of Loughborough’s Electricity Undertaking."

But the Isle of Man remained in his mind. "For several years after I left the Isle of Man I watched its development continue to happily prosper. However since then a different story must be written of the events particularly of the Board’s trials and tribulations since the end of the Second World War, but that story must be written by those who know it best.

"Suffice for me to conclude by recording that my old IoM Electricity Board is no more. In 1984 a new Manx Electricity Authority became responsible as a single authority to replace the two separate electricity undertakings of Douglas and the old IoM Electricity Board."

Clearly Mr Tucker lived a long life to see this outcome. But what he thought about it he does not say.

The launch of the IOMEB was a grand affair. The evidence for this is also in the MEA archives – a large, handsome souvenir booklet produced for guests at the inauguration ceremony by the main contractors who built the first distribution network, Johnson & Phillips Ltd, of London. It includes sepia photographs of Sir Claude and Lady Hill and the members of the Board, which had been appointed in October 1932.

The Chairman was one of the greatest men of his day, Mr A B Crookall MHK JP, a self-made businessman who had made his fortune by way of his keenly priced and successful bid for the contract to feed the thousands of POW’s and aliens detained at Knockaloe during the First World War. As a member of Douglas town council in the 1920’s he had the unique distinction of being elected Mayor for five years in succession. In Tynwald he eventually graduated to the Legislative Council. In addition to being a driving force behind the IOMEB he also did much to promote and develop Douglas as a holiday resort.

The other Tynwald member was Mr J R Corrin MLC JP and the worthy gentlemen (not politicians) representing the north, south and west of the Island were Mr J J Cowley CP (Captain of the Parish), Mr J B Kee and Mr W O Quayle.

There is also a photo of a youthful-looking – and perhaps apprehensive-looking – J P Tucker. By rare coincidence, when he had moved to Loughborough, he became a friend of A B Crookall’s grandson, Mr Brian Crookall, who recalls that he lived to be 99½ years old and died about 1994.

The booklet records the events leading to the Board’s establishment. A map shows the routes taken by the 33,000 volt overhead lines – and reveals just how much of the rural parts of the Island were not being electrified in the first instance. The poles and substations are shown in other sepia photos, showing parts of the Manx countryside long before the property developers of the late 20th Century got to work. The poles and their auxiliary structures are undeniably ugly and intrusive upon unspoiled country; they went up long before the dawn of Nimbyism.

The text in the booklet reveals the hand of J P Tucker in its reference to the transportation of equipment to the Island and the noble efforts of the unskilled locally recruited workforce. We also learn: "The whole of the materials throughout the scheme are (with the exception of the poles which are of North European origin) of British origin and manufacture. Great credit is due to the contractors and all concerned for the expeditious way in which the work has been carried out, considering that the first contract was placed only six months ago."

Six months … all things considered they were very different times from today.

The Second World War imposed its restrictions on the everyday life of the Isle of Man. But in the post-war years the IOMEB returned in earnest to "Electrifying an Island". The first Peel power station (Peel A) was commissioned in 1950 to UK-wide and professional admiration.

The March 1954 issue of the magazine "The Oil Engine and Gas Turbine", published in London by the Temple Press, ran a five-page article with photographs and detailed technical drawings of "Britain’s largest post-war oil-engined power station". This was how Peel A was perceived by "The Oil Engine and Gas Turbine" which was obviously a highly respected publication. Is it still on the shelves today?

The article was for professionals with its minutely-detailed description of the workings of Peel A – and it offers only the briefest reference to Douglas Corporation’s part in the scheme of things in the Isle of Man. But there was social commentary:

"In the area covered by the Isle of Man Electricity Board there is plenty of opportunity for further developments as only a portion of the farms are using electrical energy and there are still many private houses still using paraffin lamps for lighting purposes. As years pass the demand for electricity will increase and as yet the cost of diesel generating plant is found by the Board to be economical, more diesel sets will be installed at various locations throughout the Island".

The article also says: "The expenditure for the Peel power station, including land, buildings, storage tanks, all plant and machinery, was £286.759. The capacity is 8,440kW and this equals a cost of about £34 per kW – surely an economical proposition in comparison with other forms of prime mover".

Once again the oil price crises to come were not, could not, be foreseen.

It might also be worth mentioning, incidentally, that the article says the architects of Peel A were a local practice, Davidson & Marsh, of Douglas. The Isle of Man did not always turn inevitably to outside professional services.

Meanwhile Peel A’s fame was not confined to the pages of "The Oil Engine and Gas Turbine". Exploration of the MEA archives reveal that in October 1957, at Caxton Hall in London, the Diesel Engineers and Users Association heard a lecture on "Diesel Electricity Generation in the Isle of Man" by R J Riches, the Englishman who since 1950 had been the IOMEB’s station superintendent which meant he had been in charge of Peel A since the start of construction.

The text of Mr Riches’ dissertation is still accessible to professionals interested in the great deal of information he delivered to his audience. He makes only the essential minimum reference to the role of the Douglas undertaking in development of the electricity industry in the Isle of Man. And amalgamation does not arise.

Then again the professionals were understandably less concerned with the politics than in their own duties and responsibilities and perhaps wisely so as far as the public arena was concerned.

After the Second World War the operation of two separate undertakings in the Island, with the Joint Electricity Authority (JEA) holding the ring between them, seemed to bed into the life of the Island. Amalgamation does not seem to have been high on the agenda.

People could count themselves fortunate to be in the Douglas undertaking area which had the benefit of a compact and densely populated supply area and sent out bills which were a third lower than the IOMEB’s. Mind you, this was still the time of cheap energy, before OPEC flexed its muscles. The actual cash difference was not that painful for the bill payers.

However, the IOMEB was, with its large and scattered service area and remote areas to reach, a non-profit making undertaking and it had to buoyed-up by Government subsidy.

The Government increasingly wanted amalgamation. The Corporation side of the JEA would have none of it especially when the Government took over the Corporation’s water undertaking, further increasing centralisation at the expense of Douglas municipal power and influence. The town council felt itself to be under serious threat from Big Brother Government.

Meanwhile both undertakings maintained their own programme of development to keep up with the ever-growing Island-wide demand for electricity. In 1959 the Corporation’s diesel plant at Pulrose was commissioned and in 1970 the coal plant there, which had been in service since 1929, was decommissioned. In 1960 the IOMEB commissioned its second power station, this one at Ramsey. There was continuing replacement of worn-out equipment. If it wasn’t for the JEA the two undertakings might have been operating on separate planets, but in the JEA the two sides could not put amalgamation completely out of their minds.

By the same token the issue seems to have been side-stepped by common consent. What went on at the meetings of the JEA with amalgamation ever hanging in the air, was not known to the public; the proceedings were held in private. But, as developments were to show, something was going on. If the minutes of the meetings are still extant they would be interesting to read.

Electricity was in the news, however, in other ways. In 1977 Tynwald gave the IOMEB the go-ahead for a hydroelectric scheme at Block Eary. It cost nearly half-a-million pounds and it was switched on in March 1981. Board Chairman Alex Moore MLC admitted that it would not contribute a great deal of output to meet the overall demand but it would be cheap and it would save the Board £100,000-a-year.

In 1981 there was also an industrial dispute in the Island’s electricity industry in which the staff of the two undertakings were certainly amalgamated. It was over £10-a-week productivity pay increase. The combined workforce of about 250 men threatened walkouts and carried out their threats. There was a court of inquiry and the workforce won the verdict.

At the same time the world was in the grip of the upsurge in oil prices. Tynwald’s Energy Committee, recognising the Island’s total dependence on diesel generation, recommended tapping in to Scotland’s power resources, which embraced nuclear and hydro-electric generation and was more broadly based, by way of an undersea cable. The estimated cost was £8 million, to be met jointly by Government and Corporation.

This was laid before Tynwald in June 1981. The Court, after a long and tiresome debate, did not approve it. All it would do was, in parliamentary terms, "receive" it. This was not outright rejection. It was putting the idea on the shelf – where it remained out of reach.

Certainly the Government had a lot on its plate in 1981 – the building of the new Douglas harbour breakwater and the Sulby reservoir, the bitterly contested plan to build a refuse incineration plant at Pulrose, and furious international controversy over the Island’s retention of judicial corporal punishment, the birch.

In November 1981 there was a General Election in the Island. In December there was a ferocious blizzard which caused sever damage to the IOMEB’s distribution system and caused a widespread power blackout. It was just under a week before full restoration of supply could be completed. And as 1981 gave way to 1982, amalgamation suddenly became a full-scale public issue.

It was the beginning of the last battle.

In January 1982 it emerged that the Government was making moves – secret moves – towards initiating an amalgamation of the IOMEB and the Douglas Corporation Electricity Department. The newspaper reports of the day say that the Attorney General had produced a draft Bill for the purpose.

It was laid before the JEA and the reaction of the Corporation representatives was violent – and very public. Their leader was Councillor Audrey Ainsworth, chairman of the Council’s Electricity Committee, a fiery lady, and she alleged at the January meeting of the Council that she and the other Corporation representatives had been told they should not discuss the draft Bill with other members of the Council. It had, she said, been classed by the Government as "restricted information".

Councillor Audrey Ainsworth really blew the veil of secrecy apart. Her language and she was rather more articulate than most of her fellow council members, was meat and drink for the newspapers. She spoke of cavalier treatment" of the Corporation by the Government", "a sell-out", "a power grab" and, tellingly, "a disaster for the ratepayers".

The Government’s clumsy insertion of the draft Bill into the JEA really gave the Corporation a chance to beat its breast. The Council was losing or had lost much of its powers to the Government – its water undertaking, highways and public transport (apart from the horse trams). Now electricity was under threat. The town hall issued a Press release saying:

"Despite common feeling that amalgamation is inevitable this is by no means the case since, to the Council’s knowledge, there is no proof that any reduction in overall costs would occur".

The fog of war was now being blown across the field of conflict by the politicians. In January 1982 there was a Douglas town council by-election and one candidate won headlines by alleging that what he described as a takeover of the Douglas electricity undertaking by the Government would increase the town consumers’ bills by narrowing the differential gap in tariffs. In effect he said the Douglas bills would go up by 40 per cent.

Now the focus of conflict was bearing down on the controversy over the tariff differential. It was not to be sorted out until the very last moment before amalgamation eventually took place.

But this was not to say that the main principle of amalgamation was being accepted. In February 1982 the town council came out with a unanimous statement of opposition. This was communicated by letter to the independent chairman of the JEA, Mr J P Quayle BSc, CEng, FIMechE, FIEE, Mem, ASME, so that he could follow the established procedure of reporting it to the Executive Council, Tynwald’s Cabinet, which was the fore-runner of today’s Council of Ministers.

At the same time he issued a Press release saying that his appointment by Exco had been on the basis that he should "encourage steps towards amalgamation" and report back to Exco on whether it was "feasible or desirable".

Mr Quayle went on to say that his present recommendation to Exco was that if the Corporation should continue its opposition, the Government should back away from amalgamation. He said the operation of two separate undertakings was "quite viable".

At the same time he was convinced that amalgamation would be better in the long term and both sides should "examine their motives with ruthless honesty".

Mr Quayle added that when the draft Bill’s confidentiality was blown by Councillor Ainsworth this had "stirred unreasonable fears and exaggerated statements based more on conjecture than truth".

The next step, in March 1982 was a statement issued by the chairman of Exco, the late Percy Radcliffe MHK, giving an apparently unequivocal guarantee that there would be no amalgamation while the Corporation was opposed. But he added, revealingly, that discussion with the Corporation were continuing and they were "very amicable".

This was code for saying that the politicians, national and local, were getting down to working out a deal and doing it well out of the public eye. Electricity dropped out of the headlines. The local newspaper front pages were dominated anyway by the disastrous collapse of the Isle of Man Savings and Investment Bank.

One electricity story did come out, in July 1982, when it was announced that 46-year-old John Stanley Kewley had been appointed general manager of the IOMEB in succession to Peter Woosey who was retiring after nearly 20 years service. Stan Kewley, a Manxman with an impressive track record, was returning to the Island after 30 years working in the electricity industry in the UK; his last position had been with the South of Scotland Electricity Board.

He told the Manx newspapers: "The Island has a dependence on oil which means that the days of cheap electricity are behind us. Alternatives are being investigated and always will be". He added that it was too early to say "what developments there might be in the future." He avoided making any overt reference to amalgamation. But he and the birth of the MEA were destined to coincide and he could not have failed to perceive the possibility.

Meanwhile the democratic political process – defined superbly as "the art of the possible" – was pursuing its shadowy course behind closed committee room doors. It was not until November 1982 that amalgamation stepped back on to the public agenda with the appointment by Tynwald of – yet again but for the last time – an independent commission of inquiry. Its remit was to examine the question of amalgamation.

The motion that it would recommend anything other than amalgamation when it reported back to Tynwald, as required, by June 1983 was pretty much beyond belief after all that had gone before. Cynics might see this way of doing things as an elaborate and, for the taxpayer, costly charade. Cynics might also come to see the Government indulging with what today would be see as spinning.

In March 1983 Tynwald was told by Percy Radcliffe that the IOMEB’s finances were "in a parlous state" with serious problems caused by falling demand, high capital expenditure and mismanagement. He said the deficit to be met by Government could be £1 Million for the past financial year.

In April Tynwald voted the IOMEB £1.1 million plus £750,000, the latter sum being to meet the expected debts in the first quarter of the new financial year.

In May the IOMEB increased tariffs by 13 per cent to 9.6p a unit compared with the Corporation’s 6.02p. In the same month the commission of inquiry produced a report strongly in favour of amalgamation.

The message to the public was that amalgamation was in the best interests of all the electricity consumers in the Isle of Man.

The Commission’s report, proposing amalgamation dating from April 1st 1984, was approved by Tynwald with Mr Radcliffe telling the Court that the intention was "to present the Isle of Man as a whole with the opportunity to establish an efficient electricity undertaking able to face the future on a sound financial basis with no doubts as to its duties and responsibilities, particularly with respect to its relationship with Government."

Government was now well and truly in the driving seat.

The late Brian Gelling, MHK for West Douglas, looked on all this dourly. He said things were being rushed by the Government in order to "frighten consumers into believing that without amalgamation the Island would be plunged into darkness or faced with frighteningly high tariffs."

But amalgamation was firmly on course. In November 1983 EXCO set up a six-man board to run what was to be known as the Manx Electricity Authority. It included IOMEB chairman Charles Cain MHK and Douglas Town Council Electricity Committee chairman Councillor George Shimmin.

It was clear that the Corporation had given in to the Government on the principle of amalgamation. All that remained to be decided was how hard the equalisation of tariffs, which had to come, was going to be on the Douglas consumers. This was going to be down to debate and decision-making in the Legislature and the Bill to effect amalgamation was placed before the House of Keys near the end of 1983, with April 1st 1984 still the target date.

Everything turned on the defense of the interests of the Douglas consumers by the Douglas and Middle MHK’s. East Douglas MHK (now MLC) Dominic Delaney was in the forefront of the fight. During the debate on the second reading of the Bill he filibustered stoutly, challenging each and every clause and causing delay after delay as April 1st loomed.

The sticking point was the Bill’s intention to carry out a phased equalisation of tariffs over a period of five years from April 1st. The Douglas and Middle MHK’s, aware of their constituents’ eyes upon them and the next General Election not very far off, fought grimly for a better deal. They won one in February 1984.

The offer made in the Keys was holding the differential for four years after which a phased equalisation would take place over the next four years. It was presented to the House by way of an amendment to the Bill tabled by Rushen MHK Noel Cringle, now President of Tynwald. Mr Cringle was chairman of the Board of Home Affairs and therefore a member of Exco.

It is reasonable to assume that he was sponsoring an offer agreed by Exco under the pressure of the Douglas and Middle MHK’s and also the remorseless passage of time.

The compromise, for that is what it was, was accepted by the Douglas and Middle MHK’s. They offered no opposition to the completion of the Bill’s second reading and clauses stage. They even agreed to the suspension of Standing Orders to enable the third reading to be taken the same day.

Mr Cringle, in his role as honest broker (he represented an IOMEB supply constituency) declared that it had been "a generous compromise, a full, fair and just solution."

The Bill now had to go "upstairs" to the Legislative Council where former IOMEB chairman Alec Moore declared it to be "a miracle of compromise." The Bill was through the Council by the end of February. The only ripple in what was now a smooth progress was a statement by the Transport and General Workers Union district officer John Corrin – later to be an MHK – that while the politicians had been having "a field day" over amalgamation no thought had been given to "the plight of the employees (of both undertakings) and their worries for the future." But Government assurances that staff concerns were being given the fullest attention seem to close this interlude down.

And what of Douglas Corporation? In March 1984 a statement was issued by Town Clerk Donald Peers saying: "The Council’s reservations on amalgamation are a matter of history and were maintained until July 1983 when Tynwald accepted the terms of the commission’s report. From that time it became clear that April 1st 1984 was the target date."

Mr Peers added that all matters of concern to the Council had been settled and it was "now as anxious as anyone that the legislation should be effected at the earliest opportunity."

The long, long battle was finally over. The Corporation went on to accept £162,000 as payment for the assets of its undertaking.

In anticipation of April 1st, applications had been invited for the post of deputy chairman and chief executive of the MEA, the man who was going to run it on a day-to-day basis. Stan Kewley applied and was successful. Today he recalls:

"On April 1st I was the MEA’s only employee." His office was at Harcroft, the old Manx mansion house that had long been the headquarters of the IOMEB. It was there that he called together senior officials of both the Government and Corporation undertakings and began the process of bringing the MEA fully into operation as an entirely new body.

In the first place the switchboard girls had to start telling people they were ringing up the Manx Electricity Authority. Van drivers put MEA decals on their vehicles. But the birth of the MEA was unattended by the Manx news media. April 1st passed off like any other All Fools’ Day. It was intended. Stan Kewley wanted to get on with his job in peace. Now retired, he admits that it was a huge and challenging task.

"For one thing," he says, "we had 40 different methods of consumer charging to eventually reduce to four. But that was only part of it. It took the efforts of a great many people to get the MEA off the ground and looking into the future – the very interesting future I think now – that lay ahead."

Epilogue

The days when the Corporation and Government electricity undertaking were in outright conflict are fading further and further back into history. The staff members who remember those days are reducing in number. But there are those with vivid memories.

In 1944 Bernard Shimmin joined the IOMEB as a temporary clerk. It was not necessarily what he would have wished. He was 23 and serving in the British Army in the Second World War. But he had to be invalided out after sustaining serious wounds caused by an exploding grenade.

Bernard served with the Board until he retired in 1981 by which time he had risen through the ranks to the position of commercial manager. "There was an unbridgeable gulf between us and the Corporation," he recalls. "We were, indeed, very much at loggerheads. Both sides, at the political and staff level, were opposed to amalgamation for one reason or another and we each wanted to be left to get on with our own business.

"Mind you, we watched each other like hawks, to see what the opposition was doing. But there was little actual contact between the two sides at staff level. It was nothing to do with territory. Douglas had their clearly defined distribution area and we had the rest of the Island. But we did like to score points over one another when we could.

"I don’t know what things were like within the Corporation Electricity Department. In the Board we were a closely-knit community, all loyal to each other. But overall the attitude was that never the twain shall meet.

"As time went by, however, we began to see that amalgamation was inevitable, we knew it had to happen in the end. I retired three years before the MEA was started and I was glad to go. When I met my former Board colleagues working for the MEA they often told me they missed the espirit de corps that had been so strong in the old days."

Mr Shimmin remembers that one of the first MHK’s to espouse the cause of amalgamation was Tony Brown who, before becoming the Member for Castletown, was an electrician with the IOMEB. He also recalls that the Tynwald members of the Board knew little about electricity. "When they had to answer questions in the Court officials like me had to provide them with the answers. We chose the ammunition for them and they fired it. We had a lot of influence on events as far as this was concerned."

He also found that the Board had a major problem with unpaid bills. "I was given power to deal with this situation. We actually had the power of entry into people’s premises if we had to cut off their electricity supply after they had been given fair warning about non-payment. We told the police when we did this and they would come with us.

"We were often going into the homes of people who were known to the police who were glad of the excuse of a look around; they themselves didn’t have our powers.

"I had a first class staff working for me and we always balanced our books to a penny. I had the utmost faith in the people working for me. There were sometimes questions in Tynwald about our attitude towards bad debts.

"But I was conscious of the fact that we were dealing with public money and I felt that responsibility keenly. Mind you, when there were cases of social deprivation involved we always kept the DHSS fully informed of our actions."

Mr Shimmin’s other big problem was the theft of money from household electricity meters, usually by somebody in the house concerned. He produced a simple solution.

"All we did was remove our locks from the meters. People could take the money back out as readily as they put it in. It made no difference to us. We still maintained a record of consumption and the presentation of accurate bills.

"It also meant that we didn’t have to have meter readers going around collecting meter cash and having to drag increasingly large and heavy amounts of coin with them."

Mr Shimmin also has other memories, including the time he had to disconnect Speaker of the House of Keys Sir Charles Kerruish for non-payment. "In fact the guilty party was the occupant of one of his cottages. But the property was in his name. He came on the phone to me in a fury and I have to admit that I put the phone down on him. Later he had the good grace to ring back and apologise."

There was also one house in which whenever the occupier switched on her electric cooker, her front door bell rang. It was found that rodents had chewed the wiring and caused a short circuit.

"I had a long and happy career with the Board," said Mr Shimmin, "and I tried to be a good servant to it. I remember with special pride the staff, the people I worked with and their devotion to duty. They always gave of their best."

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