ABSTRACT
The credit for being the first to apply coal-gas commercially must, however, be given to William Murdoch, an industrious and inventive Scotsman employed by Boulton and Watt, the famous engineers of Soho, near Birmingham. Murdoch advocated gas for use in factories, and at first paid little attention to its possibilities for public lighting. In Manchester, the local governing body known as the Police Commissioners had begun to manufacture gas on a small scale in 1807, at first in order to light the outside, and later the interior, of their offices. The expansion of the gas industry in the years of depression after the end of the Napoleonic Wars was aided by the availability of large stocks of Government surplus musket barrels at £13 to £17 per ton. These were used as service pipes for leading the gas into buildings from the mains, while old cannon did duty as lamp posts.
