In this e-News, we share the topics of The Adyar Newsletterand a story from the Adyar Archives. The Adyar Newsletter is a quarterly magazine covering what is happening at the International Headquarters, Adyar.
Space permitting, it is proposed to have a small section in every issue, to cover some of the extremely interesting historical aspects relating to the TS estate under the heading, Leaves from the Archives. A Dutch theosophist, A.J.Hamerster, who resided at Adyar and worked here during the early 1900s, wrote in The Theosophist and other journals under this title. And we are borrowing this title for the purpose of writing and acquainting our readers with snippets of the absolutely fascinating incidents that happened in the TS estate in the bygone era!
The Story of how Electricity and Water came to Adyar
Electricity for lighting and power is taken for granted at Adyar now, but it was not always so. Until the birth of the Engineering Department (called then “The Power House”’ and the name still lingers) in 1910, lighting at Adyar consisted only of candles, paraffin lamps and lanterns carried around by the residents. It is hard now to imagine that H.P.B. and the Colonel did their writing and proof-reading by candle or lamp light when working into the small hours of the morning. (H.P.B. left her four silver candlesticks to special friends in her will of 1885).
When Dr Annie Besant came to Adyar she immediately interested herself in the idea of electricity and by 1910 the first generating plant was installed by Siemens Engineering and Manufacturing Co., of Madras, with the assistance of Mr R. Balfour Clarke, who was residing at Adyar. This was a suction gas engine with its anthracite gas-producing plant directly coupled to a D.C. dynamo, which supplied electrical power for pumps and for charging batteries for lighting purposes.
A further advance was made when the Madras City electric supply came near enough to give bulk A.C. supply to the Adyar estate. The expansion then reached the point where a larger transformer was installed to deal with a new 11,000 volt supply which the Madras Electric system had run to our sub-station, replacing the old 5,000 volt supply line. The result of this was greatly appreciated especially at Convention time when the load was always considerably more. At other times too power was now available to meet the more general demand for electric fans, sewing machines, refrigerators and such domestic appliances, and also for the greater power needs of the Press and Engineering Departments.
Then came the erection of a large water-tank on a steel tower to provide piped water by gravity flow for domestic and other purposes in the place of water previously drawn from wells and distributed by watermen.
(To put things in perspective, electricity generation in Tamil Nadu, until about 1908, was confined to a few tiny plants in Tea Estates which were run on hydroelectricity. So Annie Besant’s pioneering initiative in bringing it to the Adyar estate in 1910 displayed yet once again her extraordinary foresight and acumen in keeping abreast of technological and other advances).
Editor’s note: The source for all the information appearing under this title (in this and future issues) is the Adyar Archives. We are grateful to the President, Mr Tim Boyd, for permitting access to the precious archival material and allowing us to share the glory of Adyar and its leaders with everyone. Thanks also to the Head of Archives, Ms Jaishree Kannan, for providing all the material so willingly and enthusiastically.
The mission of The Theosophical Society is:
To serve humanity by cultivating
an ever-deepening understanding and realization of
the Ageless Wisdom,
spiritual self-transformation,
and the unity of all life.
