On This Day – December 10th

The world's first traffic lights were designed John Peake Knight, a railway signalling engineer. They were introduced on 109th december 1868 at Parliament Square in London.

Knight's design used a semaphore system where an arm was either in a horizontal position or at an angle. The semaphore method would be used during the day and, at night, red and green lights, powered by gas, were used. Policemen stood next to the signals all day, and night, in order to operate them.

It was an immediate success. Knight confidently predicted more signals would appear in the centre of London.

Sadly a month into the project disaster struck. One evening a leaky gas mains resulted in one of the traffic lights exploding in the face of the policeman who was operating them. He was badly burnt.

The project which had been enthusiastically greeted up until then was immediately dropped.

It took 40 years for traffic lights to reappear, with the introduction of mass electrification in America. London's first electric traffic light was installed somewhat later in 1926 on the corner of St James's Street, Piccadilly.

Again, police were stationed next to the lights at all times, this time to ensure drivers obeyed the new signals.

How tall is a modern day UK traffic light?

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