[ [352] These several inventions were embodied by him in a patent taken out in 1799.
[ [353] Burning springs, though by no means common in Europe, were not unknown. They were kept burning by natural and spontaneous supplies of carburetted hydrogen gas issuing from fissures in the earth overlying beds of asphalte or coal. The inflammable character of fire-damp and the explosions which it occasioned in coal mines were also familiar to most persons living in the coal-mining districts. In 1658 Mr. Thomas Shirley first communicated to the Royal Society the result of some experiments which he had made on the inflammable gas issuing from a well near Wigan in Lancashire. Some time before 1691 the Rev. Dr. Clayton, Dean of Kildare, made some experiments on what he called the spirit of coal: he distilled some coal in a retort, and, confining the gas produced thereby in a bladder, he amused his friends by burning it as it issued from a pin-hole. In 1721 Dr. Stephen Hales found it was practicable to produce elastic inflammable air from coal and other substances, and that nearly one-third of Newcastle coal was drawn off in vapour, gas, &c., by the action of heat. In 1733 Sir James Lowther communicated to the Royal Society a paper on the subject of the fire-damp issuing from the shaft of a coal mine near Whitehaven, which had been accidentally set fire to and continued to burn for two years. Dr. Watson, Bishop of Landaff, and Dr. Priestley of Birmingham, examined the properties of coal-gas, and made experiments on its inflammable qualities, but pursued the subject no further. Lord Dundonald also had been accustomed, for the amusement of his friends, to set fire to the gas disengaged by the burning of coal in the process of coke-making. The same phenomena must have been observed on a large scale wherever coke was made. Each chamber in which coal was distilled was in point of fact a gas retort. Oil and gas were the products of the distillation; but strange to say, although the oil was collected and used, no heed was taken of the gas. Nor was it until Mr. Murdock’s attention was called to the subject that lighting by gas was proved to be practicable.
[ [354] ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1808, pp. 124–132.
[ [355] Many years later (in 1818), when Murdock was at Manchester for the purpose of starting one of Boulton and Watt’s engines, he was invited, with Mr. William Fairbairn, to dine at Medlock Bank, then at some distance from the lighted part of the town. “It was a dark winter’s night,” writes Mr. Fairbairn, our informant, “and how to reach the house over such bad roads was a question not easily solved. Mr. Murdock, however, fruitful in resources, went to the Gas Works, (then established in Manchester), where he filled a bladder which he had with him, and placing it under his arm like a bagpipe, he discharged through the stem of an old tobacco-pipe a stream of gas which enabled us to walk in safety to Medlock Bank.”
[ [356] Watt here alluded to the new machinery and plant erected at Soho under Murdock’s directions, at a cost of about 5000l. for the purpose of manufacturing gas apparatus.
[ [357] The invention of lighting by gas has by some writers been erroneously attributed to Winsor. It will be observed, from the statement in the text, that coal-gas had been in regular use long before the appearance of his scheme, which was one of the most crude and inflated ever brought before the public. “The Patriotic Imperial and National Light and Heat Company,” proposed amongst other things to aid and assist Government with funds in times of emergency, to increase the Sinking-fund for reducing the National Debt, to reward meritorious discoverers, &c. &c. Some idea of the character of the project may be formed from Mr. [Lord] Brougham’s speech in opening the case against the Bill:—“‘The neat annual profits,’ says Mr. Winsor, ‘agreeable to the official experiments’ (that is, the experiments of Mr. Accum....) ‘amount to 229,353,627l.’ ... now Mr. Winsor says, that he will allow there may be an error here, for the sake of arguing with those who still have their doubts; and he will admit that the sum should be taken at only one half, or 114,845,294l.; and then giving up, to meet all possible objections, nine-tenths of that sum, still there will remain, to be paid to the subscribers of this Company, a yearly profit of 570l. for every 5l. of deposit! So that upon paying 5l. every subscriber is to receive 570l. a year for ever, and this to the last farthing; it may increase but less it can never be; the clear profit is always to be above 10,000l. per cent. upon the capital! This is pretty well, sir, one would think. There is here estimate and statement enough to captivate the public; but this is not all; for Mr. Winsor has taken out a patent (of which, indeed, he has, according to his custom, enrolled no specification, but, on the contrary, has enrolled a surrender) for the invention of several things, and, among others, one for rendering this gas respirable. It is not enough that this gas (which everybody knows to be not respirable, but as poisonous to the lungs as fixed air) should be capable of giving light; but he thinks it also necessary to prove that it may easily be rendered respirable; in short, that there is no way in which it may not be used, and nothing which may not be made of it.... In another pamphlet.... Mr. Winsor endeavours to prove that this gas is the vital principle; that in which life itself consists. If I had taken the trouble to go through his publications, which I certainly have not done, it is hard to say what I might not have discovered; but I should think the difficulty would rather be, to find one quality which the gas is not stated to possess.”
[ [358] The first application of the “Gas-light and Coke Company” to Parliament in 1809 for an Act proved unsuccessful, but the “London and Westminster Chartered Gas-light and Coke Company” succeeded in the following year. The Company, however, did not succeed commercially, and was on the point of dissolution, when Mr. Clegg, a pupil of Murdock, bred at Soho, undertook the management and introduced new and improved apparatus. Mr. Clegg first lighted with gas Mr. Ackerman’s shop in the Strand in 1810, and it was regarded as a great novelty. One lady of rank was so much delighted with the brilliancy of the gas-lamp fixed on the shop counter, that she asked to be allowed to carry it home in her carriage, and offered any sum for a similar one. Mr. Winsor by his persistent advocacy of gas-lighting, did much to bring it into further notice; but it was Mr. Clegg’s practical ability that mainly led to its general adoption. When Westminster Bridge was first lit up with gas in 1812, the lamplighters were so disgusted with it that they struck work, and Mr. Clegg himself had to act as lamplighter.
[ [359] “It consisted,” says Mr. Buckle, “of a piston working in a cylinder 10 feet diameter in water, with a lift of 12 feet, and raised by forcing in air from a small blowing cylinder 12 inches diameter, 18 inches stroke, which was worked by the gearing in the boring-mill.” Paper read by the late William Buckle at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham, 23rd October, 1850.
[ [360] Lockhart’s ‘Life of Scott,’ one vol. edition, p. 500.
[ [361] Mr. Buckle, in the memoir above cited, says,—“So completely was he absorbed at all times with the subject he had in hand, that he was quite regardless of everything else. When in London explaining to the brewers the nature of his substitute for isinglass, he occupied handsome apartments. He, however, little respected the splendour of his drawing-room, and, fancying himself in his laboratory at Soho, he proceeded with his experiments quite careless and unconscious of the mischief he was doing. One morning his landlady calling in to receive his orders, was horrified to see her magnificent paper-hangings covered with wet fish-skins hung up to dry; and he was caught in the act of pinning up a cod’s skin to undergo the same process. Whether the lady fainted or not is not on record, but the immediate ejectment of the gentleman and his fish was the consequence.”