Adelaide Oval's first sports event under lights in 1885: Adelaide v. South Adelaide footy

Adelaide Oval in the 1880s.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

The first sports event under lights at Adelaide Oval was an Australian football match between Adelaide and South Adelaide on July 1, 1885, from 8pm. Adelaide engineering company F. Howard Clark and Co. supplied the six electric arc lamps, three on either side of the ground, with two steam-powered dynamos for each three.

Four lamps were 1,000 candlepower, made by Brush, an Anglo-American company, and two of 2,000 candlepower by the German industrial giant Siemens.
The lamps were mounted on 30-feet poles equally spaced around the oval just outside the boundary flags.

The game was well attended but the lighting didn’t allow a full view of the game, especially when the ball’s white paint wore off. There also were brief lamp failures. Adelaide won the game 1 goal 8 behinds to 8 behinds.

Francis Howard Clark was manager of the engineering side of the company behind the Adelaide Oval venture.

Clark, who founded an engineering shop in Port Adelaide, built windmills and pumps of his own design. His windmill was shown at the 1879 Adelaide Industrial Exhibition; his pumps were well received at the Adelaide Exhibition in 1881. A portable steam engine and well-boring equipment won prizes at the Royal Adelaide Show in 1887. 

F. Howard Clark and Co. branched out into stationary engines and other machinery around 1875, with day-to-day operations managed by Joseph Horwood in premises on Gresham Street and North Terrace, moving to Blyth Street in 1878. The company was declared insolvent in 1884 but was permitted by its creditors to continue trading. In 1886, with the departure of M Symonds Clark, it became Francis H. Clark & Co. The company ceased trading in 1893.