CHAPTER XXIV.
Condition of the streets of London—Old oil lamps—Improvement in lamps—Gas—Its introduction by Murdoch—Its adoption in London by Winsor—Opposition to it—Lyceum and other places lit with it—Its gradual adoption—The old tinder box—Improvements thereon.
LAMPLIGHTER—1805.
LONDON was considered the best paved city in the world, and most likely it was; but it would hardly commend itself to our fastidious tastes. The main thoroughfares were flagged, and had kerbs; sewers under them, and gratings for the water to run from the gutters into them—but turn aside into a side street, and then you would find a narrow trottoir of “kidney” stones on end, provocative of corns, and ruinous to boots; no sewers to carry off the rain, which swelled the surcharged kennels until it met in one sheet of water across the road. Cellar flaps of wood, closed, or unclosed, and, if closed, often rotten, made pitfalls for all except the excessively wary. Insufficient scavenging and watering, and narrow, and often tortuous, streets, did not improve matters, and when once smallpox, or fever, got hold in these back streets, death held high carnival. Wretchedly lit, too, at night, by poor, miserable, twinkling oil lamps, flickering with every gust, and going out altogether with anything like a wind, always wanting the wicks trimming, and fresh oil, as is shown in the following graphic illustration.
LAMPLIGHTER—1805.
In this, we see a lamp of a most primitive description, and that, too, used at a time when gas was a recognized source of light although not publicly employed. Of course there were improved oil lamps—notably those with the burners of the celebrated M. Argand—and science had already added the reflector, by means of which the amount of light could be increased, or concentrated. In the Times of May 23, 1803, is a description of a new street lamp: “A satisfactory experiment was first made on Friday evening last at the upper end of New Bond Street, to dissipate the great darkness which has too long prevailed in the streets of this metropolis. It consisted in the adaptation of twelve newly invented lamps with reflectors, in place of more than double that number of common ones; and notwithstanding the wetness of the evening, and other unfavourable circumstances, we were both pleased, and surprised to find that part of the street illuminated with at least twice the quantity of light usually seen, and that light uniformly spread, not merely on the footways, but even to the middle of the street, so that the faces of persons walking, the carriages passing, &c., could be distinctly seen; while the lamps and reflectors themselves, presented no disagreeable glare to the eye on looking at them, a fault which has been complained of in lamps furnished with refracting lenses.”
Here, then, we have a perfectly independent testimony of the inefficiency of the then method of lighting; and, when once complaint begins, the remedy soon follows.
Gas was known, and was steadily fighting its way. Murdoch, who was a metal founder at Redruth, had been experimenting upon gas made from different materials, and in 1792 he lit up with it, his house and offices. Nay, more, he nearly earned the fame, and consequent punishment, of being a wizard; for he not only had a steam carriage, but in this uncanny conveyance he would take bladders of this new inflammable air, and actually burn a light without a wick. From a scientific curiosity, he naturally wished to develop it into a commercial undertaking, by which he might reap a substantial reward for his ingenuity; and in 1795 he proposed to James Watt to take out a patent for gas, instead of oil, as an illuminating medium. In 1797 he lit up Watt’s new foundry at Old Cumnock in Ayrshire; and in 1798 Boulton and Watt’s premises at Soho, Birmingham, were lit with this new light; and they, on the peace of Amiens, in 1802, gave the townsfolk of Birmingham something to stare at, and talk about, for they illuminated the whole front of their house with gas. Murdoch, in 1806, received the gold (Rumford) medal of the Royal Society for a communication detailing how he had successfully applied gas to illuminate the house and factory of Messrs. Phillips and Lee at Manchester.
In London we are chiefly indebted to a German, named Frederic Albert Winzer (or, as he afterwards Anglicised his name, Winsor) for introducing gas, and we have to thank his indomitable perseverance for its ultimate adoption. In 1804, he took out a patent for the manufacture of both gas and coke, and attempted to start a society called “The National Light and Heat Company.” He wrote several works not much larger than pamphlets, notably one on “The superiority of the new Patent Coke over the use of coals” (1804); and “To be sanctioned by an Act of Parliament. A National Light and Heat Company, for providing our streets and houses with light and heat, where is proved that the destruction of smoke would open unto the Empire of Great Britain new sources of inexhaustible wealth.”
THE GOOD EFFECTS OF CARBONIC GAS!
Of course it met with ridicule everywhere. People would be asphyxiated. The place would be blown up. Even scientific men were not agreed as to its value, and Sir Humphrey Davy openly laughed at it. But Winsor, in 1803 and 1804, demonstrated the possibility of lighting houses, &c., by means of the new light at the Lyceum Theatre, which was not then used for dramatic purposes, but more for lectures; and as there could be no possibility of confuting his facts, he necessarily gained proselytes, and money was forthcoming in support of his schemes. The first experiment in street lighting was in August, 1807, when Golden Lane Brewery, and a portion of Beech, and Whitecross Streets were lit. This is shown in the illustration, and, by its means, we see the shape and arrangement, of the first street gas lamps. That the gas then in use was very impure, and offensive to the smell, there can be no doubt; but that it ever produced the effects so comically, and graphically depicted, cannot be believed.
It is generally thought that Ackerman’s Fine Art Repository, in the Strand, was the first shop in London lit with gas, in 1810; but there is an earlier notice of its being so used (Morning Post, June 15, 1805): “The shop of Lardner and Co., the corner of the Albany, Piccadilly, is illuminated every evening with the Carbonated Hydrogen Gas, obtained from the decomposition of Coals. It produces a much more brilliant light than either oil or tallow, and proves, in a striking manner, the advantages to be derived from so valuable an application.” There is a story, for which I cannot find any authority, that at Ackerman’s a titled lady was so pleased with the light, that she wanted to take it home with her in the carriage.
The Light and Heat Company died a natural death, but the indefatigable Winsor started the Gaslight and Coke Company, and attempted, in 1809, to obtain a Charter for the same; but it was refused by Parliament, which gave rise to the following jeu d’esprit: “Gaslight Company. The shareholders in this most promising concern are somewhat disconcerted at the decision of the House of Commons. Some think that it will prove ‘a bottle of smoke’, while others are of opinion that it will at last ‘end in air.’”
The Gaslight and Coke Company had offices in Pall Mall, and in the street, in front, lamps for public use were once more exhibited, this time for the benefit of the West-end loungers. In the engraving a gentleman explains to his fair companion thus: “The coals being steamed, produces tar or paint for the outside of houses, the smoke passing thro’ water is depriv’d of substance, and burns, as you see.” On hearing this peculiarly elementary scientific explanation, an Irishman exclaimed, “Arrah, honey, if this man brings fire thro’ water, we shall soon have the Thames and the Liffey burnt down, and all the pretty little herrings and whales burnt to cinders.”
A PEEP AT THE GAS LIGHTS IN PALL MALL.
In 1810 the Gaslight and Coke Company got their Charter, and thenceforward the use of gas sprang into life, and although it may be on its last legs, as an illuminating power, there is plenty of vitality in it yet.
Winsor was buried at Kensal Green, and on his tombstone was cut the text from the Gospel of St. John, chap. i. ver. 9: “That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”
To light this gas or, indeed, to initiate any illuminating or heating power, recourse was only to be had to the old, original tinder-box and matches; now things utterly of the past, possibly to be found in museums, as in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, labelled “Method of procuring light in the Nineteenth Century.” This primitive arrangement consisted of a flat round box of iron or brass, resembling closely a pocket tobacco-box, which contained tinder. This tinder was made of charred rag, i.e., linen or cotton rags burnt, but smothered so as not to smoulder out in “the parson and clerk” of our childhood, and the means of obtaining light therefrom was as follows:
The lid of the tinder-box being taken off, a piece of flint or agate, and another of hard steel, were forcibly struck together, so as to produce sparks. When one of these fell upon the tinder, it had to be carefully tended, and blown, until it became a patch of incandescence, sufficient to light a thin splint of wood some six inches long, having either end pointed, and tipped with sulphur. You might be successful at first trial, or, if the tinder was not well burnt, your temper might be considerably tried. This was the ordinary mode, but there was another—made with a pistol lock, having, in lieu of the priming-pan, a reservoir of tinder. These two were combined with a small candlestick which bore a wax-taper, and are frequently to be met with in bric-à-brac shops. Sometimes, also, in lieu of tinder, amadou or German tinder, made from a fungus, was used, or else thick and bibulous paper was soaked in a strong solution of nitrate of potash, and both were ignited by a spark from the flint and steel.
The first attempt to improve upon this machine, which was nearly as primitive as an aboriginal “fire stick,” came from France, where, in 1805, M. Chancel invented a very pretty apparatus for producing light. It consisted of a bottle containing asbestos, which was saturated with strong sulphuric acid, and flame was produced by bringing this into contact with matches of the ordinary type as to shape or very slightly modified, coated at the ends with sulphur, and tipped with a mixture of chlorate of potash and sugar. The phosphorous match, too, was just beginning to be known. The following advertisement probably refers to M. Chancel’s invention or some cognate method of producing fire—Morning Post, December 27, 1808: “The success of the Instantaneous Light and Fire Machines daily increases, and the Manufactory in Frith Street, Soho, has become now the daily resort of persons of the first fashion and consequence in town, who express themselves highly gratified with the utility and ingenuity of these philosophical curiosities.”
