Corporate body

Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Co.

THE V F P COMPANY was first registered in 1906 in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, its' main object being "to generate, develop and accumulate electrical power at the Victoria Falls, on the River Zambesi in Rhodesia, the Transvaal Colony and elsewhere". A small power station was erected below the Victoria Falls but, owing to the expansion of the Gold Mining Industry in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, the scope of the undertaking increased far beyond the first expectations. Major extensions of the V F P Company's transmission and distribution system were required to furnish power to the developing mines, and the V F P's electric system was soon the largest in the southern hemisphere. The first chairman of the Company was the Marquis of Winchester and its Managing Director Mr Arthur Hadley, CBE. The first General Manager in South Africa was Major the Hon Walter Lewis Bagot, DSO, who was succeeded in 1927 by Dr Bernard Price, with the title of General Manager and Chief Engineer. At the end of 1936 Dr Price was appointed Resident Director and Mr Thomas George Otley, who had joined the Company in 1911 as Mechanical Engineer and later Assistant Manager, became General Manager, until 1948, when the V F P Co. was taken over by ESCOM. In 1947 the South African Government gave notice of its intention to expropriate the V F P Company and its subsidiary, the Rand Mines Power Supply Company, the undertaking to be conducted in future by the Electricity Supply Commission. Negotiations were concluded in July 1948, the price paid to the V F P Company being approximately £15 000 000. THOMAS GEORGE OTLEY was born in 1873 in Sheffield, England, where at the age of 15, he was apprenticed to an engineering firm and later joined the firm of Vickers Sons and Maxim. In 1899 he became associated with Arthur Wright, one of the leading Consulting Engineers in London and gained experience in power station design and construction in Britain and other parts of the world. In 1911 he obtained the post of Mechanical Assistant to the Chief Engineer of the V F P Co., at that time Bernard Price, and their co-partnership lasted until 1948, when the V F P Co. ceased to exist. In succession to Price, Otley was the last General Manager of the Company and during his long career with it, was one of the leading engineers who directed the operation and expansion of the V F P from its small beginnings in 1910 until it was the largest steam power undertaking in the southern hemisphere. Among the major works constructed and operated under his general direction were ESCOM's Witbank, Klip and Vaal Generating Stations and the first hydro-electric generating station on the Zambesi River at the Victoria Falls. A past president of the S A Institute of Engineers, he was also a steward at the Jockey Club of South Africa and a life member of the Rand Club and of White's Club in London. He died, aged 91, at his home in Johannesburg in 1965.