Overhead line shafting installed in the Fitting, Machining and Pattern making Department of the Engineering Workshops, Goldsmiths' College, New Cross, London - circa 1894. The other metal fittings hanging from the ceiling are for 'flare' gas lighting - before the advent of the much brighter and more efficient gas "mantles".
It is possible, but by no means certain, that the first use of individual electric motors on lathes was developed by a Philadelphia company, Matthias Baldwin - originally set up to bind books and produce copper printing cylinders. By 1828, the firm had moved into larger quarters, and, being unable to a steam engine of the right specification to drive his machinery, Mr. Baldwin designed and built his own. Before long the firm was building nothing else and soon branched out into the manufacture of complete railway locomotives, the "Old Ironsides" of 1832 being their first.
By 1892 electric motors had become powerful and reliable enough to be considered suitable for use mounted on machine tools and in 1895, Baldwin, ever seeking to improve his production methods and efficiency, converted the large lathes in his wheel-turning shop to individual drives, so allowing the forest of overhead line shafts and belting to be removed. It took some time for the whole industry to follow this example and, although the use of such installations became increasingly common in the years leading up to World War 1, it was not until the 1920s that individual machine tools were to be commonly supplied with their own motors and by the end of that decade, according to published sources, some 90 percent were so fitted.
The advantages of an electrical supply system into a workshop and the fitting of individual motors to each machine tools were considerable - and today (when these fittings are universal) often forgotten:

• there were no transmission losses passing the power from one end of the factory to the other
  
• maintenance & replacement of the expensive and difficult-to-reach overhead drive system was eliminated
  
• there was no need to run a huge engine just to power a few machines - or even one
  
• speed ranges could be more precisely specified for the particular job the machine tool was designed to accomplish
  
• motors could be made to produce infinitely variable speeds - ideal for certain operations, essential for others
  
• the machine tools become portable, and could be moved around the shop floor into the best position to facilitate a particular production process
  
• switch-controlled automatic and manual safety controls could be fitted to guard the machine, operator and the work piece
  
• individual small motors could be applied to separate parts of a machine to automate or power what had previously been manual operations
  
• really massive jobs that could not be fastened to, or on, a machine tool, could be secured to the floor - and the tools built around it
  
• the electricity supply to the works enabled electric cranes and lifting devices to be installed, so speeding up the safe handing of heavy jobs, materials and the repositioning of machine tools
  
• work could continue all night
  
• the supply of electricity brought as many radical changes to the engineering trade - and industry in general - as it did to the lives of the general public.