PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
|
|
The Gaslight and Coke Company received the Royal Charter on
April 30th 1812 and the first provincial town to have gas installed was Preston in
Lancashire in 1817. In that same year the residents of Plymouth to discuss the
formation of a company to light the Town with gas. It was concluded that it would be
advisable to substitute gas for the existing oil lighting and a committee was formed. In 1826 the Commissioners entered into a contract for the lighting of public lamps at Plymouth with coal gas and oil for seven years from September 16th. There were 175 coal gas lamps and 284 oil lamps in the Town and they were to be lit every night from September 16th through to April 16th 1827. The other parties to the contract were Messrs William Bell, merchant, of Aldersgate Street in the City of London; William Fraction, wholesale grocer, of Leadenhall Street, London; Isaac Nichoson the Younger, merchant, of King's Arms Yard, London; George Richardson Porter, merchant, of Old Broad Street, London; and William Henry Porter, of Streatham, Surrey. They constructed a coal gas works at Millbay, from which they are said to have supplied the Three Towns. These gentlemen formed themselves into the United General Gas Company and were granted a Royal Charter on March 2nd 1831. In their new guise they negotiated a new contract from September 1st 1833 and another when, when that expired, to run for seven years from September 1st 1840. They charged the Commissioners £3 per lamp per annum, with £3 3s for any new lamps added to the system, rising to £4 10s per lamp if a new mains had to be laid. These high charges and the monopoly held by the Company induced the inhabitants of Plymouth and Stonehouse to form their own company with a view to providing a cheaper supply. On Wednesday July 31st 1844 a preliminary meeting was held at the premises of Messrs Whiteford and Bennett to discuss the formation of a Company to provide gas to the Town. The chairman was Mr Thomas Gill, MP. £25,000 was to be raised in £10 shares. It would require an Act of Parliament. The Plymouth and Stonehouse Gas Light and Coke Company was established in 1844, with £25,000 raised in £10 shares, and confirmed by Act of Parliament the following year. Also in 1845 the Devonport Gas and Coke Company received its Act of Parliament. Its chairman was Mr M W Jeffery, who replaced a Captain Sanders at short notice, while Mr Willing was clerk to the board and Mr Thomas A Hedley was their engineer and secretary. During 1846 the Company laid mains for the supply of gas lighting to the Royal Dockyard, Gun Wharf and Steam Yard. The lighting was switched on in the Dockyard on September 29th 1846 and in the Gun Wharf and Steam Yard in the November. During the first half of 1847 work was underway to provide 'uniform and efficient lighting at Devonport Market. The price of gas at that time was 5 shillings per 1,000 cubic feet and the Company declared that as at May 31st 1847 they had 763 consumers in the Borough. Moreover, so Mr Hedley reported at the third annual general meeting in June 1847, 'very few of your original customers have been so unpatriotic as to return to the United General Gas Company'. In 1848 the United General Gas Company were compelled to sell their Millbay works to the new Plymouth Company for £25,410. A further Act in 1853 increased the capital of the Devonport Gas and Coke Company and extended its powers, amongst other things. Between 2 and 3 o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday July 24th 1877 the residents of Morice Town were startled by the sound of an explosion at the Keyham Gas Works, which was engulfed in flames. Luckily there were no workmen nearby at the time so there were no injuries, although garden produce was severely scorched and 'some unlucky pigs kept by one cottager had their backs badly burnt', so the Western Morning News reported. It was thought that the explosion was caused by a piece of rock dislodged by some blasting that had taken place near the site the previous day had pierced the largest gasometer in the Works. This had caused gas to escape and this had been blown by a south-westerly breeze towards the retort house, where it ignited. The 50-foot diameter gasometer was completely wrecked. Gas supplies were restored by that same evening. No doubt the event was the talk of the neighbourhood for many weeks. Just before the end of December 1884 a new telescopic gasholder was put into operation at the Plymouth Gas Works. Measuring 124 feet in diameter and 56 feet in depth, it was then the largest gasometer west of Bristol. The holder was supported by sixteen massive iron columns and 32 trellis wrought iron girders. Over 600 tons of iron was used in the construction. It was erected by Messrs Willey & Company, of Exeter, while the masonry work was done by Messrs Finch & Son, of Plymouth. In 1890 Mr John Thomas was the Secretary of the Plymouth Company, with Mr John T Browning as Engineer and the premises were at Gas House Lane, off Sutton Road, Coxside. At that time the charge to private consumers was 2s 3d per 1,000 cubic feet. The Devonport Gas and Coke Company had their works at Keyham, where Mr John Willing [not John Williams as stated in street directories*] was Secretary and Mr Robert Clark, the Manager. An additional gas holder had recently been erected to hold 200,000 cubic feet of gas. It should be mentioned that at their first annual meeting on Thursday January 31st 1901, the St Budeaux Ratepayers' Association complained about the fact that they did not have access to gas. They felt that their only hope of getting it lay in the success of Devonport Corporation's endeavour to buy out the gas company. The Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Devonport were enabled to purchase the undertaking of the Devonport Gas and Coke Company and to supply gas within the Borough by an Act of Parliament in 1901. The legal transfer took place on January 1st 1902. However, Devonport Corporation took its time in paying for the purchase and the Company was run under dual ownership until that happened in May 1902. The amount paid over was £149,000, which included £39,000 representing the liabilities of the Company. Very soon after the takeover a firm of consulting engineers examined the condition of the plant and immediately presented a comprehensive scheme for reconstruction of the works. The total estimated cost of the work was £80,000 and this included the erection of two gas holders on a site in the St Levan valley that had already been purchased because there was no room for expansion at the existing works. On Tuesday July 7th 1908 the chairman of the Gas Committee, Alderman W Hornbrook, laid the foundation stone of a new Retort House to replace one that was 'rotten to the core and positively dangerous for their men to work in.' This building was expected to cost around £8,500 and the internal dimensions were 280 feet 9 inches long by 70 feet 6 inches wide by 26 feet 9¼ inches high. The height to the apex of the roof was 50 feet. It was built of dressed limestone and there was coal stores at both ends of the building, each capable of holding 2,000 tons of coal. It was to be built by Mr A Andrews and Messrs Willey & Company were to install the equipment. Also present at the ceremony were the Mayor of Devonport, Mr R Smerdon, and the gas engineer, Mr J W Buckley. The Retort House was expected to enter service in September 1908. St Budeaux got its gas supply from Devonport in 1902, the mains being carried across Weston Mill Creek by means of the London & South Western Railway viaduct. On February 29th 1928 the Plymouth & Stonehouse Gas Light & Coke Company announced a price reduction in the cost of gas. For domestic customers this would in future be 6.5 pence per Therm. In Plympton, Plymstock and other "outlying districts" (mainly Compton and Pennycross) it would be 7.8 pence per Therm. The price for business consumers, or 'Engine consumption' as they termed it, was 5.9 pence and 7.2 pence per Therm respectively. During 1947 the gas works at Saltash was closed down and the Town was thereafter supplied by Devonport. In the midst of the post-war enthusiasm for nationalisation, the South South Western Gas Board was formed and took over the both gas works from Sunday May 1st 1949. Keyham Gas Works closed Wednesday April 30th 1958. It had employed 120 men and the station manager was former Sutton Secondary School pupil Mr Peter G Richardson. The works manager and engineer at the closure was Mr L P Price. It was retained as a storage depot for coke but the many local housewives who had complained over the years about the soot and grime soiling their washing must have been quite pleased about the closure. A mains link between Totnes and Ivybridge brought in to use on Thursday October 16th 1958 meant that gas could now be transferred from Exeter and Torquay to Plymouth. On October 26th 1967 the Lord Mayor, Alderman Frank Chapman, opened a new Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) plant on a 24-acre site at Breakwater Quarry, Oreston. Large tankers discharged cargoes of light petroleum distillate at Cattedown Wharves, which was then piped under the Cattewater to be enriched at the new works. Likewise, Plymstock Station yard was converted into a discharge point for train loads of butane, which was also pumped to the Breakwater works. This enabled the closure of the coal-fired gas works at Coxside on July 31st 1968 and closure of the last remaining coal carbonisation plant in the area, at Torpoint, on September 30th 1969. Plymouth's final gas lamps -- mainly in the Barbican, Stoke and St Budeaux areas -- were replaced with electric ones during 1973. * I am indebted to Pam Willing, John's Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter, for pointing out the error. John was the son of Alderman James Willing and lived at one time at Lamorna Place, next door to the gas works.
|
