Chapter XX (2)

[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.

“It is now nearly sixteen years since (1792), in the course
of experiments I was making at Redruth, in Cornwall, upon the
quantities and qualities of the gas produced by distillation from
different mineral and vegetable substances, that I was induced
by some observations I had previously made upon the burning of
coal, to try the combustible property of the gases produced from
it, as well as from peat, wood, and other inflammable substances;
and being struck with the great quantities of gas which they
afforded, as well as the brilliancy of the light, and the facility
of its production, I instituted several experiments with a view of
ascertaining the cost at which it might be obtained, compared with
that of equal quantities of light yielded by oils and tallow. My
apparatus consisted of an iron retort, with tinned iron and copper
tubes, through which the gas was conducted to a considerable
distance; and there, as well as at intermediate points, was
burnt through apertures of various forms and dimensions. The
experiments were made upon coal of different qualities, which I
procured from different parts of the kingdom for the purpose of
ascertaining which would give the most economical results. The
gas was also washed with water, and other means were employed to
purify it.”[354]

[354] ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1808, pp. 124–132.

Murdock put his discovery to the best practical test by lighting up his house and offices at Redruth with gas; and he had a gas lantern constructed, with a jet attached to the bottom of the lantern and a bladder of gas underneath, with which he lighted himself home at night across the moors when returning from his work to his house at Redruth.[355] On the occasion of a visit which he made to Soho in 1794, he took the opportunity of mentioning to Mr. Watt the experiments he had made, and their results; expressing his conviction of the superior economy, safety, and illuminating qualities of coal-gas, compared with oils and tallow. He then suggested that a patent should be taken out for the application, and at various subsequent periods he urged the subject upon the attention of his principals. But they were at the time so harassed by litigation in connexion with their own steam-engine patent, that they were unwilling to enter upon any new enterprise which might possibly lead them into fresh embroilments; and nothing was done to protect the invention.

[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.”

On Murdock’s return to Soho in 1798, he proceeded with his investigations, and contrived an apparatus for making, purifying, and storing the gas on a large scale; and several of the offices in the building were regularly lighted by its means. On the general illumination which took place in celebration of the Peace of Amiens in 1802, the front of Soho Manufactory was brilliantly illuminated with gas, to the astonishment and admiration of the public. The manageableness, the safety, the economy, and the brilliancy of the new light being thus proved, Boulton and Watt in 1803 authorised Murdock to proceed with the general fitting up of the manufactory with pipes and burners, and, from that date, it continued to be regularly lit up with coal-gas. Several large firms followed their example; amongst others Phillips and Lee, Burley, and Kennedy, at Manchester, and Gott and Sons, at Leeds; and the manufacture of gas-making apparatus became one of the regular branches of business at Soho. Several years later, in 1805, when Watt went down to Glasgow, he found gas in pretty general use.

“The new lights,” he wrote to Boulton, “are much in vogue here;
many have attempted them, and some have succeeded tolerably in
lighting their shops with them. I also hear that a cotton-mill in
this neighbourhood is lighted up with gas. A long account of the
new lights was published in the newspapers some time ago, in which
they had the candour to ascribe the invention to Mr. Murdock. From
what I have heard respecting these attempts, I think there is full
room for the Soho improvements,[356] though, when once they see
one properly executed, it will have numerous imitations.”

[356] Watt here alluded to the new machinery and plant erected
at Soho under Murdock’s directions, at a cost of about 5000_l._
for the purpose of manufacturing gas apparatus.

Several years after the introduction of the new light, a German, named Wintzer or Winsor, brought out (in 1809) a scheme similar to one projected in Paris by Le Bon, for lighting the streets by gas. He proposed a Joint Stock Company, with a capital of 300,000_l._, and held forth to subscribers the prospect of a profit of ten thousand per cent.![357] He applied to Parliament for a Bill, against which Murdock petitioned, and was examined before the Committee. Though they were staggered by the crudities of Winsor, they had some difficulty even in accepting the more modest averments of Murdock as to the uses of coal-gas for lighting purposes. “Do you mean to tell us,” asked one member, “that it will be possible to have a light _without a wick_?” “Yes, I do, indeed,” answered Murdock. “Ah, my friend,” said the legislator, “you are trying to prove too much.” It was as surprising and inconceivable to the honourable member as George Stephenson’s subsequent evidence before a Parliamentary Committee to the effect that a carriage might be drawn upon a railway at the rate of twelve miles an hour _without a horse_.

[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 229,353,627_l._’ ...
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 114,845,294_l._; 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 570_l._ for every 5_l._ of deposit! So that upon
paying 5_l._ every subscriber is to receive 570_l._ 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 10,000_l._
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.”

No wonder that strange notions were entertained about gas in those early days. It seemed so incredible a contrivance, to make air that could be sent along pipes for miles from the place at which it was made to the place at which it issued as jets of fire, that it ran entirely counter to all preconceived notions on the subject of illumination. Even Sir Humphry Davy ridiculed the idea of lighting towns with gas, and asked one of the projectors if it were intended to take the dome of St. Paul’s for a gasometer; and Sir Walter Scott made many clever jokes about the absurdity of lighting London with smoke, though he shortly after adopted the said “smoke” for lighting up his own house at Abbotsford. It was popularly supposed that the gas was carried along the pipes on fire, and that hence the pipes must be intensely hot. Thus, when the House of Commons was first lighted up with gas, the architect insisted on the pipes being placed several inches from the wall for fear of fire, and members might be seen applying their gloved hands to them to ascertain their temperature, expressing the greatest surprise on their being found as cool as the adjoining walls.[358]

[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.

The advantages of the new light, however, soon became generally recognised; and gas companies were established in most of the large towns. Had Murdock patented the invention, it must have proved exceedingly remunerative to him; but he derived no advantage from the extended use of the new system of lighting except the honour of having initiated it,--though of this more than one attempt was made to deprive him. As he himself modestly said, in his paper read before the Royal Society, “I believe I may, without presuming too much, claim both the first idea of applying, and the first actual application of this gas to economical purposes.”

Murdock’s attention was, however, diverted from prosecuting his discovery of the uses of gas to a profitable issue by his daily business, which was of a very engrossing character. He continued, nevertheless, an almost incessant contriver, improver, and inventor; following, like his master Watt, the strong bent of his inclinations. One of his most cherished schemes was the employment of compressed air as a motive power. He contrived to work a little engine of 12-inch cylinder and 18-inch stroke, which drove the lathe in the pattern-shop, by means of the compressed air of the blast-engine employed in blowing the cupolas at the Soho Foundry; and this arrangement continued in use for a period of about thirty-five years. He also constructed a lift worked by compressed air, which raised and lowered the castings from the Boring-mill to the level of the Foundry and the Canal Bank.[359] He used the same kind of power to ring the bells in his house at Sycamore Hill; and the contrivance was afterwards adopted by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford.[360] He experimented on the power of high-pressure steam in impelling shot, and contrived a steam-engine in 1803, with which he made many trials at Soho, in anticipation of Perkins’s apparatus. He was the inventor of the well-known cast-iron cement so extensively used in engine and machine work; and the manner in which he was led to it affords a striking illustration of his quickness of observation. Finding that some iron-borings and sal-ammoniac had got accidentally mixed together in his tool-chest and rusted his saw-blade nearly through, he took note of the circumstance, mixed the articles in various proportions, and at last arrived at the famous cement, which eventually became an article of extensive manufacture at the Soho works, completely superseding the cement invented by Watt. In 1810 he took out a patent for boring stone pipes for water, and cutting columns out of solid blocks by one operation. In 1815 he invented an apparatus for heating the water for the Baths at Leamington by the circulation of water through pipes from a boiler,--a method since extensively adopted for heating buildings and garden-houses. While occupied in erecting the apparatus at Leamington, a heavy cast-iron plate fell upon his leg and severely crushed it, laying him up for many months.

[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.

His ingenuity was constantly at work, even upon matters which lay entirely outside his special calling. Mr. Fairbairn informs us that he contrived a variety of curious machines for consolidating peat moss, finely ground and pulverised, under immense pressure, and moulding it into beautiful medals, armlets, and necklaces, which took the most brilliant polish, and had the appearance of the finest jet. Observing that fish-skins might be used as an economical substitute for isinglass, he went up to London to explain to the brewers the best method of preparing and using them.[361] While in town on this errand, it occurred to him that there was an enormous waste of power in the feet of men and animals treading the streets of London, which might be economised and made productive; and he conceived the idea of using the streets as a grand treadmill, under which the waste power was to be stored up by mechanical methods, and turned to account! Another of his ingenious schemes--though then thought equally impracticable with that last mentioned--was his proposed method of transmitting letters and packages through a tube exhausted by an air-pump. This idea seems to have led to the projection of the Atmospheric Railway, the success of which, so far as it went, was again due to the practical ability of Murdock’s pupil Samuel Clegg. Though the atmospheric railway was eventually abandoned, it is remarkable that Murdock’s original idea has since been revived, and practised with success, by the London Pneumatic Despatch Company.

[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.”

Such is a brief sketch of the life and works of this estimable and ingenious mechanic, for so many years the mainstay of the Soho works. Mr. Fairbairn, who first made his friendship at Manchester in 1816, speaks of him as one of the most distinguished veterans in mechanical engineering then living,--“tall and well-proportioned in figure, with a most intelligent and benevolent expression of countenance.” He was a man of robust constitution, and though he sorely taxed it, he lived to an old age, surviving the elder Boulton and Watt by many years.[362]

[362] The young partners regarded him with a degree of
affection and veneration, which often shows itself in their
correspondence. Towards the later years of his life Mr.
Murdock’s faculties gradually decayed, and he wholly retired
from the business of Soho, dying at his house at Sycamore Hill,
Handsworth, on the 15th Nov., 1839, in his 85th year.

]

[363] The first piece of iron-toothed gearing ever cast is
placed on the lawn in front of Murdock’s villa. The teeth are
of somewhat unequal form, and the casting is rough--perhaps
it has been exposed to rough usage. It bears the following
inscription:--“This Pinton was cast at Carron Ironworks for John
Murdock, of Bellow Mill, Ayrshire, A.D. 1760, being the first
tooth-gearing ever used in millwork in Great Britain.”