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Aug 23, 2011 · Despite its many drawbacks, gas remained the most popular form of lighting until the launch of the National Grid in the 1930s and the history of lighting would be much duller without it.
- Lighting by Gas: The Latest Modern Convenience of The Time
- Gas Lamps: The Bother
- Gas Mantles and How Gas Lights Work
- The Fragility of Gas Mantles and How to Protect Them
- How Gas Mantles Were Bought
- How Gas Lamps Were Lit
- Gas Pipes
- The End of Gas Lights and The Arrival of Electric Lights
When I was a child growing up in the early 1900s, we considered ourselves very fortunate that our house had lighting bygas laid on. Few working-class households in the early 1900s had it. (Electric lighting and gas heating and cooking came to ourVictorian style terraces much later.) My grandmother only ever hadoil lamps and candles, but we lived on...
Gas lamps were quite a bother to light and had to be lit every time we wanted light. So they were only lit when someone wanted to stay in a room for some time. For short-term and emergency use, we either moved around in the semi-dark or used candles, lit with matches. There was always a box of matches and a candle in a candlestick beside our beds a...
Gas lamps worked by heating something called a 'mantle' with a gas flame. The mantle then became white hot and could illuminate a room. Lamps had two chains: one to turn the gas on and the other to turn it off. These chains could also adjust the flow of the gas and hence the brightness of the mantle. Gas mantles were made from a material that looke...
Gas mantles were extremely fragile, and once they had been heated, they crumbled very easily indeed. To further protect mantles; to spread their light; and of course for decorative purposes, there was always a glass cover of some sort screwed round them. In our house, this was a globe: the top half was milk-white frosted glass and the lower half wa...
Mantles, being so fragile, had to be replaced quite frequently. We bought new ones from theoil shop, each one always in its own cardboard box to protect it.
We did the lighting with a match through a hole in the bottom of the globe, taking care not to touch the fragile mantle. Some families used wax tapers which were like very thin candles about 8 inches long. These, being longer than matches, were easier to use, although they did have to be lit with a match first or from the fire, and it was all too e...
The gas for the lamps in most rooms of the house came in through a pipe from the centre of the ceiling, as shown in the above labelled photo. Some, though, had the pipe in the wall. A gas lamp powered by a gas pipe in the wall I felt that both were attractive, provided that the mantle was covered by a shade. In our house, all the pipes were hidden ...
If you can add anything to this page or provide a photo, I would be pleased if you would contactme. Unless otherwise stated, the lamps on this page were photographed at the National Museum of Wales. Text and images are copyright sources: early 20th century material sources: ww2 home front and other material contact the webmaster/author/researcher/e...
Sep 7, 2023 · Though safe today, antique lights once posed risks of poisoning, suffocation, asbestos, radioactivity, and explosions. by Jenny Elliott September 7, 2023. How to Ensure the Last Gas-Lamp...
- Jenny Elliott
When gas lighting was prevalent, the most common fuels for gas lighting were wood gas, coal gas and, in limited cases, water gas. Early gas lights were ignited manually by lamplighters , although many later designs are self-igniting.
More economical than oil lamps or candles, the technology proliferated and by 1823, several towns and cities in Britain were lit by gas. By 1859, around a thousand gas works had been created to cope with the demand, but the predominance of the gas lamp was to be short-lived.
Gas lamps were popular in the late 19th century and could be found in streets, parks, and even homes. An example of a gas lamp from this time period is the gasolier, which was a large lamp that was attached to the ceiling and provided chandelier-like lighting.
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Apr 29, 2022 · The first sign of gas street lighting that appeared in Britain was in 1807 in London’s Pall Mall. That year a line of gas burner street lights were illuminated to celebrate the birthday of King George III. Each lamp was fed with gas pipes that were made from the barrels of old musket guns that lit up the whole street with just one spark.
