Nova Scotia Tramways & Power
Company Limited

Nova Scotia Light & Power
Company Limited

Historical Notes

General Overview

The story of Nova Scotia Light and Power Company Limited starts with the incorporation of the Halifax Gas, Light and Water Company in 1840.  By January of 1843 the company was ready with six miles of gas mains and lights for 281 stores and dwellings, along with sixty street lights.  Operations continued with variable success until 1897 when the People's Heat and Light Company, a second gas business formed in 1893, absorbed the first gas company.

Another ancestral company was the Halifax City Railroad Company, a horsedrawn public transit system organized in 1863.  It began operations on 11 June 1866, and for ten years served Halifax with what eventually became nine miles of track laid in the streets.  This system was taken over by the Halifax Street Railway Company Limited and its successor, the Nova Scotia Power Company Limited, which carried on until 1896 when electric trams replaced the horse cars.

The third and most important strand of the company's history is traceable to April 1881 – a year and four months before Thomas Edison opened his Pearl Street electric generating station in New York – when three Haligonians formed the Halifax Electric Light Company Limited.  It never operated.  Possibly the technical problems associated with taming this untried and unknown force – electricity – were too awesome at that time for Halifax knowledge and technology.

Three years and seven months later, John Starr and his associates incorporated the Halifax Electric Light Company (limited).  It is the same name except in the way "limited" is written, with a lowercase "l" and in parentheses.  The second electric company built a 100 horsepower [70 kW] generating plant driven by a steam engine, and began operations from Black's Wharf, Water Street, in February 1885.

On 20 December 1887, the Halifax Electric Light Company (limited) was taken over by the Halifax Gas Light Company Limited, which had dropped "Water" and added "Limited" to its name.

It was left for the Halifax Electric Tramway Company Limited, formed in 1895, to bring order out of the corporate chaos by buying the Nova Scotia Power Company, the Halifax Street Railway Company, and the Halifax Illuminating and Motor Company.  Then, in 1902, it bought the People's Heat and Light Company and from then on gas was under the electric wing until the old gas works was shut down in 1953.

A new company, the Nova Scotia Tramways and Power Company Limited, had been formed in 1914.  In January, 1917, it bought the properties and legal powers of the Halifax Electric Tramway Company Limited.  In the great Halifax Explosion of 6 December 1917, the company's electric generation station received only superficial damage, but all the rolling stock was hit, some of the trams were demolished, and the property damage in the service area was extensive.

The above is excerpted and adapted from an essay Nova Scotia Light & Power Company published in the May 1967 "Centennial Issue" of Industrial Canada — a copy is held in the Western Libraries at the University of Western Ontario.
    http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/ccc-novascotialight.htm

From 1919 to 1924, Nova Scotia Tramways & Power Company was under the management of Stone & Webster Inc., Boston.

In 1924, Isaac Walton Killam, through the Royal Securities Corporation, bought control of Nova Scotia Tramways & Power Company

In 1928, Nova Scotia Tramways & Power Company Limited changed its name to Nova Scotia Light & Power Company Limited.

In January 1972, the Nova Scotia Light & Power Company was taken over by the Nova Scotia Power Commission, an agency of the Nova Scotia Government.

In 1973, the Nova Scotia Power Commission was legally and financially reorganized as the Nova Scotia Power Corporation, a provincial crown corporation.

On 12 August 1992, all the electric utility assets of the Nova Scotia Power Corporation were sold to Nova Scotia Power Inc., a private (non-government) corporation.

On 1 January 1999, ownership of Nova Scotia Power Inc. (NSPI) was transferred to NS Power Holdings Inc. (NSPH).  On that date, all NSPI common shares were transferred from the previous owners (individuals, pension funds, etc.) to NSPH — which issued to the former NSPI shareholders, one NSPH share for each NSPI share.  Thus Nova Scotia Power Inc. became a wholly-owned subsidiary of NS Power Holdings Inc.

On 17 July 2000, the company name was changed to Emera Inc. from NS Power Holdings Inc. After this name change, Nova Scotia Power Inc. continued as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Emera Inc.

Source: 1935 Annual Report of the Nova Scotia Public Utilities Board

82 Electric Streetcars
1943

Nova Scotia Light and Power Company bill, August 1955   front (above)   back (below)

Original size: 20.8 cm × 8.9 cm

Nova Scotia Light and Power Company bill, May 1959

Nova Scotia Light and Power Company paycheque stub, 15 July 1959 (above)
Original size: 25.1 cm × 8.5 cm
Nova Scotia Light and Power Company paycheque stub, 31 July 1959 (below)

NSL&P Taken Over by NSPC
1972

In 1972, the Nova Scotia Power Commission acquired 99.65% of the common shares and approximately 98% of the preferred shares of Nova Scotia Light & Power Company Limited.  That gave the NSPC complete control of the NSL&P Company; the first step was the replacement of the entire board of directors.  The balance of the shares were acquired a year or so later.
Source:   Canada v. Nova Scotia Power Inc., 2003 Federal Court of Appeal 33
Background information contained in the judgment delivered at Ottawa, Ontario, on 23 January 2003
  http://www.canlii.org/ca/cas/fca/2003/2003fca33.html

On 27 January 1972, the entire Board of Directors and the President of Nova Scotia Light & Power Company resigned, and were replaced by a new Board of Directors and President named by the new owner, the Nova Scotia Power Commission.  On this date, the former shareholders formally and legally relinquished management control of the company; from this date all management decisions were made by the new owner.

The last Nova Scotia Light and Power Company dividend cheque, 1 April 1972

This cheque was signed by L.F. Kirkpatrick, President, and E.A. LeBlanc, Secretary.
Les Kirkpatrick was General Manager of the Nova Scotia Power Commission for many years,
and was named President of the Nova Scotia Light & Power Company after that Company was bought
by the Nova Scotia Power Commission.   Ted LeBlanc was Secretary of the Nova Scotia Light &
Power Company for many years before the 1972 takeover, and remained as Secretary afterward.
The position of Secretary was an important job within the legal structure of the Company.

This cheque was printed on a standard Hollerith punch card.
In the 1960s and 1970s, mass-produced cheques – such as paycheques,
dividend cheques and pension cheques – often were printed on Hollerith cards,
to facilitate the handling of the cashed cheques by banks and clearing houses.
Original size:   7 3/8 × 3 1/4 inches     18.7cm × 8.3cm

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