'Penny-in-the-slot'

H.C. Davidson ed., 'The Book of the Home', l900.

In Britain, attempts to manufactured gas from coal appear to have begun in the late 17th century. Despite other claims it is a Scottish engineer William Murdoch (l754-l839) who is generally recognised as the pioneer of the gas lighting industry.

While working for Boulton and Watt supervising the erection of steam engines in Cornish mines, Murdoch experimented in gas making, and in l792 he used gas distilled from coal to light his office in Redruth.

After his return to Birmingham Murdoch organised a display of gas lighting, and lit the exterior of Boulton and Watt's Soho works to celebrate the Peace of Amiens in l802. A year later the interior of the Soho Foundry was lit by gas, and shortly after the cotton mills of Phillips and Lee in Manchester. It was unfortunate that Murdoch was dissuaded from patenting his gas manufacturing process; nonetheless his achievement was eventually recognised when he was awarded the Rumford Gold Medal by the Royal Society in l808.

A rival claimant was Frederick Winsor (l763-l830), an entrepreneur and opportunist. He is important in the history of gas lighting as it was through his efforts that the first public gas supply company was formed.

Winsor envisaged supply from a central gasworks, rather than individual installations, to provide both lighting and heating. Winsor's first demonstration of public lighting was in l807 when, for the birthday celebrations of George III, he lit the garden wall of the Prince Regent's London home, Carlton House. Later in the same year he erected gas street lights in Pall Mall, where he had set up business premises. Winsor succeeded in raising capital to fund his Gas Light and Coke Company, and in l812 was granted a Royal Charter to light the Cities of London and Westminster and the Borough of Southwark.

Within a very few years private gas companies were set up in London and large towns and cities, although investment by town councils in gasworks was generally more cautious. It was not until the l840s that towns with populations of less than 2,500 could reasonably expect a gas supply, and it continued to be uneconomic to lay mains to very small rural communities and isolated properties. For wealthy householders determined to have gas lighting but whose estates were in secluded positions, their only option was to build a gasworks or, later in the century, invest in considerably cheaper acetylene or air-gas plants.

Until the end of the 19th century the overwhelming majority of gas consumers were the urban-dwelling middle classes. But with the threat of competition from electricity in the l880s, gas companies did their utmost to retain and recruit new customers. The previously neglected working classes were to form the largest group of new consumers once gas companies started to provide pre-payment 'penny-in-the-slot' meters in the l890s.

In l882 there were 500 gasworks supplying less than 2 million consumers, but after the introduction of pre-payment meters demand increased significantly. By l920 there were 827 gasworks supplying 8 million consumers, and of these 4.5 million had pre-payment meters.

The quality of gas lighting depended on the coal used in its manufacture. Common coal produced between 12 cp to 16 cp per standard burner and higher quality cannel coal produced 22 cp to 25 cp. Legislation enacted from l851 onwards compelled gas companies to produce gas to a specified illumination and purity that were subject to regular inspection and testing. Nevertheless when gas of good illuminating quality was produced, ignorance often prevented consumers from obtaining the best possible light from their burners.

The first gas burners were rudimentary, with names determined by their flame shapes, rat-tail, cockspur and cockscomb.

In his first gas-making experiments Murdoch devised a burner based on the principle of the Argand oil lamp, and in l809 Samuel Clegg constructed gas Argand burners that had a ring of small holes, to be used with glass chimneys. The burner produced a column of bright light but it was not popular for use in the home, as the flame smoked if the burner was not frequently adjusted when gas pressure fluctuated.

Although not equal in brightness to the Argand gas burner, two other improved burners were introduced: the batswing burner in l816, with a slit opening which produced a broad flat flame; and, dating from l820, the fishtail or Union Jet. This burner had two small holes that allowed the gas jets to impinge on each other with the effect of producing a brighter flame. However, if the burners were not properly adjusted they made a variety of hissing, roaring, singing or whistling noises that caused great irritation to users.

Good light from gas burners was subject to different variables - the quality and pressure of the gas from the gasworks, and the care consumers or their servants took in cleaning and changing their burners regularly. Some of the problems were solved by William Sugg's introduction in l858 of non-corrodible burner tips. He also went on to produce pressure-regulating governors. In l874 Sugg launched his 'Christiania' burner that was considered to be 'probably he best flat flame burner ever made. It was pronounced by many eminent gas engineers of the day to be the perfection of flat flame burners …'.

An invention that staved off competition from the electric lamp for many years, and that superseded all other gas burners in terms of light-output and economy, was the incandescent mantle invented by Carl Auer, Baron von Welsbach, who was granted a master patent in l885. The cotton or ramie fibre mantle was impregnated with chemicals from rare earths, and when heated by a Bunsen flame glowed to a white incandescence that was infinitely brighter than the reddish-yellow light of flat flame burners. A number of technical and production difficulties had to be overcome before the mantle was commercially successful, but by l891 the company was able to claim that the mantle gave up to 60 cp for 3,000 hours.

Before the introduction of the electric lamp a problem for all lighting technologies was that light shone upwards. Attempts had been made to invert the gas flame with regenerative and recuperative lamps, but these were not popular for use in the home. However, an inverted burner more suitable for domestic use was invented in the closing years of the century and was an immediate and resounding success when it was finally launched in the early years of the 20th century. The inverted burner offered all the advantages of electric lighting at a fraction of the cost, and moreover it was possible to convert upright gas fittings through the use of an adaptor.

After the National Grid became operational in the mid-l930s, gas lighting went into decline. Following the discovery and exploitation of vast supplies of natural gas in the l970s, all fittings and appliances had to be converted. At this point only a very few chose to continue lighting their homes with gas; consequently, gaslit homes are now very rare indeed.