 | ||
Electrolier was the name for a fixture, usually pendent from the ceiling, for holding electric lamps. The word is analogous to chandelier, from which it was formed. For a fine poetical if somewhat confusing description of such a lamp in a Metropolitan Railway ("Early Electric") station dining room, see Sir John Betjeman's poem "The Metropolitan Railway - Baker Street Station Buffet" from his collection "A Few Late Chrysanthemums" (1954): "Early Electric! With what radiant hope / Men formed this many-branched electrolier, / Twisted the flex around the iron rope / And let the dazzling vacuum globes hang clear, / And then with hearts the rich contrivance fill’d / Of copper, beaten by the Bromsgrove Guild."
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "article name needed". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.