The first electric street lighting in London illuminated the Thames Embankment in 1878.
The installation was on Victoria Embankment, beside the River Thames, and became the first street in Britain to be permanently lit by electricity in December 1878. It used 20 Yablochkov candles—arc lamps designed by Russian inventor Pavel Yablochkov—powered by a Gramme direct-current generator.
The experiment reflected Victorian London’s enthusiasm for applying electricity to public life. Electric light was brighter and cleaner-looking than gas, but the technology was still expensive and difficult to operate. The system was expanded to 40 lamps in March 1879 and 55 lamps by October that year.
Electricity did not immediately replace gas lighting. In June 1884, gas lighting returned to the embankment because electric lighting was not yet competitive. The episode is therefore an important early milestone rather than the beginning of uninterrupted electric street illumination. Victoria Embankment itself was a major nineteenth-century engineering project, built over the covered northern sewer and alongside the Thames.