Actions

Gas Light & Coke Company

From London's Ghost Acres

Revision as of 12:33, 6 January 2016 by EliseLehmann (Talk | contribs)



Operation

1812 to 1949


Located in

London

Description

The Gas Light & Coke Company (sometimes known as the Chartered Gas Light & Coke Company) was established in 1810. By 1823 the company operated three major works in London: one at Horseferry Road/Great Peter St in Westminster and two in Shoreditch, at Goswell St/Brick Lane and on Curtain Road. These gasworks were “annually consuming 20,678 chaldrons of coal, producing 248,000,000 cubic feet of gas, and lighting 30,735 lamps through 122 miles of gas mains” (The National Archives). In 1868 the Gas Light & Coke Company established a new gas works at Beckton.

Under the The City of London Gas Act 1868, the Gas Light & Coke Company absorbed many other London gas works companies, including the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company (The National Archives).

Gas works were used to produce and store flammable gas. Coal was largely mined in Britain but also shipped in from Russia, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. None of the original three Gas Light & Coke Company works were close to water or railways, so the coal was brought in by road and then burned to create the gas, which was then purified and put into the gas holders until needed for consumer use. The process also created coke, tar, ammonia, and sulphur as by-products.

The Gas Light & Coke Company produced gas used for lighting homes and streets.

51.51561, 0.078019 Beckton Gas Works

51.49583, -0.13028 Great Peter Street Gas Works

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/3c478014-712e-43c6-8786-c3b871813664

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/The_Engineer_1862/03/21

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Gas_Light_and_Coke_Co

https://books.google.ca/books?id=xCxxAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT13&dq=London's%20Lost%20Power%20Stations%20and%20Gasworks&pg=PT127#v=onepage&q&f=false