IT WAS fifteen years from the time of Murdoch’s first installation at Soho before the streets of London were lighted by gas on a commercial scale. Our grandfathers seem to have had a great dread of gas, and public opposition no doubt had much to do with its exclusion from the metropolis. There were even at that time eminent literary and scientific men who did not hesitate to cast ridicule upon the proposal, and to declare the scheme to be only visionary. But in 1813, Westminster Bridge, and a year later St Margaret’s parish, was successfully lighted.

From that period the use of gas extended, but it was some time before the public fears were allayed, for it is related that Samuel Clegg, who undertook the lighting of London Bridge, had at first to light his own lamps, as nobody could be found to undertake this perilous office. Even after gas had come into general use as a street illuminant, it must have found its way but slowly into private houses. In an old play-bill of the Haymarket Theatre, dated 1843 — thirty years after the first introduction into the streets — it is announced:

“Among the most important Improvements, is the introduction (for the first time) of Gas as the Medium of Light!”