EnergySafe Magazine Spring 2014, issue 37 | Page 14

14

Electrical
news

Greenwood Electrical
celebrates centenary
History turns up in surprising
places. Charlotte Roseby
meets licensed electricians Paul
Hobden and Simon Choate of
Greenwood Electrical Group
and discovers a treasure trove
of electrical history.
As Australia commemorates 100 years since
the beginning of World War 1, Greenwood
Electrical Group is celebrating its century
this year—100 years of unbroken electrical
business.
With its REC number of 95, Greenwoods is
one of the oldest electrical companies in Victoria
(the REC numbers have now reached five digits!)
Rather than be weighed down by the long
legacy, licensed electricians and company
co-directors Paul Hobden and Simon Choate
have embraced it.
“We feel a responsibility toward the history of the
business. It’s quite an honour to keep the company
going all those years. Our customers really respond
to the long-standing nature of our company, so we
promote it … a lot of people trust us.
“We’re not part of the original Greenwood
family, but Greenwood Electrical is still a family
business … our families!”
Living history
Part of the responsibility that Paul and Simon
feel to the history of the company is to preserve as
many of the original electrical artefacts as they can.
The history really springs to life in their Reservoir
workshop: you can see the decades of hard work
in the heavy pedestal press drill with leather belts
and the worn anvil from a time when electricians
did their own manufacturing and fabricating.
Their most precious historical item is one
that is still in use: the original 500 Volt wind up
“Megger” insulation and resistance tester. It is kept
on Paul’s van and called into action every couple
of days, just as it has for years.
“It runs rings around the new digital Meggers,”
says Paul. “The batteries just never go flat! It’s the
number-one tester for rectifying any RCD faults we
get called out to diagnose; it breaks the resistance
down in a flash.”
Paul and Simon have also collected their own
little shop of horrors of illegally and dangerously
wired switches, as well as a collection of original
porcelain throw switches with copper contacts
and live terminations behind a screwed brass
cover, which would certainly not meet safe
earthing requirements these days.
“They had these in my local pub until very
recently,” says Simon, who looks suitably horrified
at the memory.

A proud history: Greenwood Electrical co-directors Paul Hobden and Simon Choate.

Some of Paul and Simon’s tools and
equipment are stored in a spectacular wall of
original colour-coded old tin drawers. They are a
fossicker’s delight. “Young blokes think we just
bought these down the road at Ikea,” Paul says
with a laugh.
1914: war, electricity, light and power
The story of Greenwoods, as it tracks through
history, is certainly an insight into Melbourne’s past.
In 1914 Abel Francis Greenwood—son of
a prominent Coburg grain merchant and local
councillor—first acquired what was then a lift
maintenance company.
Paul says that Abel Francis bought the
business “from a German fellow who was no
longer allowed to own a business here”. This was
a common story. In 1914 when Australia joined the
British Empire in the First World War, anti-German
sentiment was rife. Germans and Austrians who
were old enough to join the army were put into
internment camps, and many Germans lost their
jobs and were forced to sell their businesses.
Meanwhile, electricity was booming in
Marvellous Melbourne. The Victorian government
authorised the electrification of Melbourne’s
suburban railway network in 1912 and in 1913

work began on construction of the Newport
railway power station.
By 1915, Melbourne boasted 285km of
illuminated streets. Electric lights were a symbol of
prestige, progress and social advancement. The
National Council of Women lobbied for improved
lighting in city parks and gardens to promote
safety and “purity”.
The demand for electricity skyrocketed. The
State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV)
was formed in 1921, with Sir John Monash as
the first chairman—a significant moment for the
unregulated industry, and certainly a significant
step towards our excellent electrical safety in
Victoria.
According to the Encyclopedia of Melbourne
(Cambridge University Press): “The four main
organisations generating electricity in Melbourne—
the Melbourne City Council, the Melbourne
Electric Supply Co., the North Melbourne Electric
Tramways and Lighting Co. and the Newport
power station of the Railway Commissioners
—had neither a standard voltage, phase or
current, and tariffs varied as much as the
Melbourne weather”.
In the following years, the SECV introduced
uniform standards, acquired the two main