Pioneer of Electric Power Transmission: An Account of Some of the Early Work of Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, D.Sc., F.R.S. (1864-1930)

The Electrician of 27 June 1890 reported, that ‘the Thomson alternate current motor which attracted so much attention at the Royal Society soiree last week was actuated by a current generated by the Ferranti alternator at Deptford’. This simple statement recorded the first practical realization by a 26-year-old engineer of his vision of central electricity generation. He conceived of generating stations at locations where land was cheap, where water was abundantly available, and where sea-borne coal could readily be delivered, with efficient transmission of the electricity at high voltage to centres of actual consumption. This idea, which is so familiar to us today, was at that time strange and untried and subject to powerful opposition, but the energy and enthusiasm of this young man overcame all obstacles to its success. Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti was born in Liverpool on 9 April 1864 in a house at 130 Bold Street, near St Luke’s Parish Church. He was a direct descendant of the Doge Sebastiano Ziani, one of the hero princes of Merchant Venice, through a branch of the family which settled in Bologna and added ‘de Ferranti’ to the name in the eighteenth century. Sebastian’s father came to England in 1859 and set up a photographic studio in Liverpool, which was patronized by many distinguished people of the time. His mother, Juliana, daughter of the portrait painter William Scott and Sarah Myers of Poughkeepsie, New York, was a talented musician, who had given piano recitals in most of the capitals of Europe.