Early gas works on Deptford Creek

 

THE GAS INDUSTRY ON DEPTFORD CREEK

There were four works connected with the manufacture of coal gas on Deptford Creek.  Obviously the gas industry needs the coal trade because its raw material is coal – although gas companies needed to get the right coal from the right pit. The ‘gas industry’ is not really about power generation – coal gas manufacture is a chemical process which makes a product more easily transported than coal and can be used as a power source.     

I thought it might be useful here to describe some of the events which took place before the first gas works on Deptford Creek was built. The first ever gas works, - the one in Westminster - was functioning by 1820. After that gas works were built all round London– with varying degrees of expertise and/or honesty.  What happened in Greenwich and Deptford when the earliest local gas works was proposed?

Now before I start – I have – just this morning – found something rather earlier.  I don’t know what happened to it and maybe there is a whole story here which I will find out in time.  I am pretty sure it was on the Creek – somewhere on the west bank near the railway bridge.

This earliest Greenwich and Deptford Gas Company was stated by engineer Ralph Dodds probably around 1816. (I always thought he might be a bit dodgy). He had been busy, "a piece of ground was taken at Deptford, upon which docks, and other Works, were constructed" (don't ask why he was building docks for a gas works, there is no doubt a good reason).  As work continued 'a large quantity of iron pipes, furnished by a foundry in Staffordshire, were deposited upon the premises'. Now these pipes were eventually removed by a Mr. Fesenmeyer who said he was owed money. Mr. Dodd said the money owed was nothing to do with him as he was 'merely the employed agent of the company'.

 

Enquiries began as to who owned the company - two or three names of shareholders were discovered and they were approached. Some denied all knowledge of the company and others were angry. It appeared that they had all been owned money by Mr.Dodd who had given them shares in his new gas company as settlement of the debt............  (whoops!)

So back to something marginally more respectable. In Greenwich, as elsewhere, the vestry was responsible for street lighting. They realised that there was a new technology available for it and they were also aware of local worries on night time crime. There were a number of contractors around who were keen to help them solve these problems. So, in June 1822, Mr. Hedley iron merchant and gas light contractor got an introduction to meet Mr. Bicknell, the Greenwich Town Clerk. 

Joseph Hedley ‘small and thin’ was from Norwich but in 1822 had an office in Coleman Street in the City. He built a number of gas works - for example in Gravesend, Dublin, Sheffield and Leeds and many more. Later he was engineer at the Rotherhithe Gas Works described as 'a worse arranged works that ever came to our notice'. There he was involved in a siege of the works one Christmas Eve – and it’s a pity I have no excuse to write about it here because ‘you wouldn’t believe what went on!’ 

So in 1822 he was getting himself introduced to local authorities wherever he could and offering to build them gas works - although it is not clear if any were actually completed by 1822 but he was talking to Woolwich and Dartford Vestries. 

In Greenwich he took his solicitor, Mr Tilson, to meet Mr. Bicknell and Mr. Hargrave, Chairman of the churchwardens.  Joshua Hargrave was a local businessman. John Bicknell was the son of Sabrina Sidney, who as a young girl had been ‘bought’ to be trained as the perfect wife.  She later worked for Charles Burney at his Greenwich school and John went on to a distinguished legal career as solicitor to the Admiralty, and to become a fellow of the Royal Society.  He was also involved as clerk to the Greenwich Vestry for many years.

Hedley told Bickell and Hargrave that new street lights could be in place by Michaelmas –late September.  He wrote formally for permission to dig up the streets– offering a £500 bond as a guarantee and ‘twenty or thirty lights gratis’ were part of the deal. He would also get the necessary Act of Parliament. A petition then went to Parliament for ‘lighting the parish of Greenwich’ because, of the need to prevent 'horrible murders'.

One of the Greenwich churchwardens, Richard Smith, began to complain that the parish was allowing 'strangers' to form a gas company and make a profit from it. It should be set up by local people themselves and provide a 'good and proper light' which would cost the parish absolutely nothing.

In July 1823 Mr Hedley was asked to attend a vestry meeting with his tender documents. When he got there he discovered that a Mr.Gosling had been asked to go in first to meet the vestry. Hedley sat for two hours outside the meeting and was then told that his tender was 'inadmissible' and that there was no record of his previous discussions.  Mr Gosling had got the job.

As the pavements were dug up complaints from the public rolled in. Hedley was plotting revenge and he made public the costs compared to Gosling’s.

Meanwhile Gosling got an Act of Parliament for a Ravensbourne Gas Light and Coke Co. and many Greenwich residents petitioned against it. He refused to say who his shareholders were although it was hinted that 'everyone' knew.

It turned out Greenwich vestry had broken its Standing Orders over Gosling's contract and Mr. Bicknell resigned as Vestry Clerk.  A record was made that this had been 'illegally and shamefully expended and misapplied' . Greenwich Vestry had not levied a rate – as they were legally obliged to  - and a large majority of Vestrymen had voted not to and the Royal Hospital had agreed with them.  As a result in a Writ of Mandamus was issued by the Court of Kings Bench – this was (and is) an injunction forcing a local authority to fulfil its lawful obligations regardless of what it thought about it.

So the vestry resolved 'to make a sufficient rate .... for lighting’  under protest. A vote of censure was passed on the Parish Officers for signing an 'improvident and harmful contract' with Gosling...  and ‘to pay about £5,000' for the 'gross neglect '. Also raised were ‘expenses £10 for dinner at the Ship Tavern and £25 for a (another) dinner’.

 

Meanwhile Mr. Goslings works was going ahead. An old plan shows an 'old gas works' site on the eastern side of Norway Street– on the current site of council flats – this was Gosling’s works which later became the site of the Victoria Foundry. In May 1824 it turned out that the Phoenix Gas Co. was about to buy it.

Phoenix, based in Southwark the borough, was the biggest and most successful Gas Company in South and Kentish London in the early 1820s.

Gosling said he would sell to Phoenix ‘at cost’ plus a percentage of future gas sales. An assessment of the works was to be carried out by David Mackintosh's contracting firm, and by William Anderson of the Grand Junction Waterworks. By the end of December an agreement had been reached although numerous extras were added – like Gosling's son’s salary, Parliamentary expenses, and investigations on his title to the land.

All of this was handled by Greenwich's ex-vestry clerk, Bicknell and his respectable lawyer Mr.Tilson.  I found a mention of him twenty years earlier in the diary of a local young lady – who said that at a tea party one afternoon her friend’s little boy caused so much disruption that he had to be taken home in disgrace – little Tommy Tilson.  Is it possible that all sharp lawyers began as naughty toddlers?

The Gosling works was finally closed by Phoenix in 1828 when their new works was finally ready.  They hung on to part of the site for many years and a gasholder built there by Gosling probably remained in use.  It was advertised as a 'valuable property near the river, with brick buildings and a lofty chimney, suitable for an iron foundry or any trade needing large premises'. In the 1830s it was used by German chemist Wilhelm Beneke and by 1841 it was let to William Joyce the steam engine and ship builder.

Next week I’ll try and talk about the expansion of the gas industry along Deptford Creek – also see how similar it was to other towns around London