| "Lawrence, we need someone to represent the company in the Colonies. We've decided it should be you." |
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| With words something like these, 20 year old junior clerk Alfred Lawrence found himself on a ship bound for Melbourne to represent the interest of the British General Electric company. |
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The year was 1885. It was the very early days of electricity and young Lawrence's employers were one of the few companies in the world investing in the new power source. Most people still thought of electricity as little more than a sideshow gimmick, so Lawrence had his work cut out for him. |
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| But trudging the streets of Melbourne in search of orders for electric cables and fittings was never going to satisfy the ambitious Lawrence. In 1886, barely a year after arriving in Melbourne, he moved to Sydney and set up his own business - Alfred Lawrence Electrical Merchants & Importers. |
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| His timing was perfect - and so was his forward thinking. |
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| The following year, 1887, would be Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Federation was still over a decade away, so Australia didn't exist as a country yet. Lawrence realised that the event would be celebrated as patriotically in sydney as it would in every other part of the empire - and that the 'new-fangled' electric lighting could play a major part in the celebrations. |
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| He quickly raised enough capital to buy thousands of pounds worth of electric lamps, cables and fittings from his London suppliers. As he had anticipated, communities strived to outdo each other with dazzling displays of electric lighting during the Jubilee - and Lawrence proved to be the only supplier in sydney with substantial stocks. The business was off and running. |
