Introduction
Before natural gas there was coal gas, which warmed living rooms and lit streets all over the United Kingdom until the 1960s. Coal gas does not occur naturally, and Archibald Cochrane (1748-1831), 9th Earl of Dundonald, discovered it only by chance, while making coal tar near Culross Abbey in the 1780s. It fell to another Scotsman to make coal gas commercially viable.
A FEW years later the foundation of the coal-gas manufacture was laid by William Murdoch,* a Scotsman, who must be credited with the practical introduction of this illuminating agent. The idea had about the same time occurred to a Frenchman, LeBon,* but in his hands the suggestion did not take a practical form. Murdoch was overseer of some mines in Cornwall, and in 1792 he first lighted his own house at Redruth.
He then transferred his services to the great engineering firm of Boulton and Watt at Soho, near Birmingham, where he erected apparatus in 1798, and in the course of a few years the whole of this factory was permanently lighted by gas. From this time the introduction of gas into other factories at Manchester and Halifax was effected by Murdoch and his pupil, Samuel Clegg.* From single factories coal-gas at length came into use as a street illuminant, although somewhat tardily. Experiments were made in London at the Lyceum Theatre in 1803, in Golden Lane in 1807, and in Pall Mall two years later.
* William Murdoch (1754-1839). Murdoch, who was born in Ayrshire, came to England in search of employment and found it with the firm of Boulton and Watt: see The Hat that Changed the World. He was posted to Cornwall, where he experimented with coal gas and also built a prototype steam-powered vehicle that led directly to the epoch-making designs by Richard Trevithick: see The Genius Next Door. After moving to the firm’s main works in Soho, Birmingham, Murdoch went on to make significant contributions to the development of James Watt’s steam engines. Although he did not pioneer domestic gas lighting (that honour belongs to Archibald Cochrane (1748-1831), 9th Earl of Dundonald, who used it on his estates) Murdoch was the man who, aided by Samuel Clegg, had the energy and vision to make it commercially viable in our factories and towns.
* Philippe LeBon (1767-1804). LeBon was a remarkable visionary, who explored not only the extraction of lighting gas (in his case from wood rather than from coal) but also ingenious developments of the steam engine using gas, which foreshadowed gas turbines and internal combustion engines. He died aged only thirty-seven, before his designs could be made practical.
* Samuel Clegg (1781-1861). A pupil of John Dalton, he was taken on by Boulton and Watt and worked alongside William Murdoch. He became an important engineer in his own right, in England and also in Portugal. To him belongs much of the credit for London’s gaslight infrastructure; less happy was Clegg’s championing of the ill-fated atmospheric railway system, favoured by Government but — fortunately for our railways and our economy — crushed with inexorable charm by George Stephenson: see A Bit of Luck for his Lordship.
Précis
Shortly after Archibald Cochrane first used coal gas for domestic lighting in the 1780s, fellow Scot William Murdoch gaslit his own home in Cornwall. Murdoch was then engaged to fit out several factories with gaslight (including his employers’, Boulton and Watt in Birmingham), and by the 1800s he and his assistant Samuel Clegg were bringing gas-lamps to London’s streets. (59 / 60 words)
Shortly after Archibald Cochrane first used coal gas for domestic lighting in the 1780s, fellow Scot William Murdoch gaslit his own home in Cornwall. Murdoch was then engaged to fit out several factories with gaslight (including his employers’, Boulton and Watt in Birmingham), and by the 1800s he and his assistant Samuel Clegg were bringing gas-lamps to London’s streets.
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