The gasworks

THE GAS WORKS existed in Bourne for more than a century, producing coal gas to provide light and heat for much of the town until electricity started to compete because of its cleaner operation and safer installation.

The first commercial gas works was built by the London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company in Great Peter Street in 1812 laying wooden pipes to illuminate Westminster Bridge with gas lights on New Year's Eve in 1813. Other gas works for towns and cities followed, the Bourne Gas Light and Coke Company being formed in 1840 with premises on a site at the top end of Eastgate. There were five trustees of the company, one of them being the vicar, the Rev Joseph Dodsworth, and £10 shares were issued to those who wanted a financial stake in the venture. The gasworks were erected at a cost of £2,000 and the enterprise prospered, the first project being the installation of gas lighting in the Abbey Church the same year followed by the erection of lamp standards to light the streets.

The first street to be lit by gas had been Pall Mall in London in 1807 and by 1823 numerous towns and cities throughout Britain had followed suit. Costing up to 75% less than lighting produced by oil lamps or candles helped to accelerate its development and deployment. By 1859, gas lighting was to be found all over Britain and 1,000 gas works had sprung up to meet the demand for the new fuel. The brighter lighting which gas provided allowed people to read more easily and for longer, so helping to stimulate literacy and learning and speeding up the second Industrial Revolution.

In 1868, it was necessary to enlarge the gasworks premises in what had become known as Gas House Yard to meet the demand and further extensions to installations were carried out in 1878 when new and much larger mains were laid as far as the Market Place. By this time, coal gas was being used for heating and lighting in homes, shops and business premises, as well as for street lighting and there were 56 public incandescent gas lamps at various points around the town. Kelly's Directory of Lincolnshire reported in 1885: "The town consists principally of four streets diverting from the Market Place, all remarkably clean and lighted with gas." In February 1898, the parish council, which was responsible for maintaining the street lighting at that time, asked the gas company to ensure that the lamps were lit on every dark evening and that they were left on all night on Saturdays and Sundays.

The invention of the gas meter and the pre-payment meter in the late 1880s played an important role in selling town gas to domestic and commercial customers and by the turn of the century the supply had become an essential part of everyday life. Central to the supply system was the gasometer, a massive metal telescopic holder to contain the domestic supply ready for distribution. Three were eventually erected to serve the town, each better than before, the last with a capacity of 40,000 cubic feet installed in 1908 and the biggest to be built on the site, installed by Messrs R and J Dempster of Newton Heath, Manchester, a firm with an international reputation that had been called in as consultants for public gas undertakings in many places, particularly St John's, Newfoundland, in 1888.

The third and last gasometer

Explosions were not unknown, similar to that which occurred on the evening of Friday 21st October 1898 at Mr Thomas Carlton's drapery shop in North Street. There had been a small leakage of gas which seeped into a drain through a grating at the roadside and a match thrown down by a passerby caused an explosion. Damage was not extensive and the leak was located and repaired. There were also breakdowns and when the engine at the gasworks failed in August 1915, the Town Crier, Richard Lloyd, was called out on Sunday morning to alert householders. The supply was cut off for 24 hours, causing much consternation because housewives were about to start preparing Sunday lunch but they were urged to light fires and use those for cooking instead while in the evening, churches started services without lights although the gas supply was resumed soon after they began.

The Bourne Gas Light and Coke Company ceased trading on 31st March 1914 and went into liquidation prior to being sold to Bourne Urban District Council which paid almost £14,000 for the business. The manager was retained in his post at a salary of £2 a week with £1 per quarter extra for meter reading and a house, coal and gas supplied free of charge. His wife was also to receive two shillings a week to attend to customers at the gas showrooms in Eastgate and to keep the premises clean.

By 1927, gas consumption in the Bourne area had increased to such an extent that the council purchased more land for £450 to add to the number of purifiers needed in the production process. In 1934 the service was extended to Dyke when the urban council laid a mains pipe to the village from Bourne and the streets were lighted with gas lamps for the first time, the switching on taking place on Saturday 1st September. Until then, twelve oil lamp standards had been used to light the streets but these appliances were replaced by gas burners and the number reduced to nine because their increased brilliance required fewer of them. The old system of lighting and extinguishing the lamps by hand was also abolished in favour of an automatic clock system that switched them on at night and off in the morning.

This prosperity continued for another twenty years but re-organisation within the gas supply industry brought about their closure in 1957. The buildings in Gas House Yard were demolished in January 1960 and the following April, new workshops for the construction of the BRM racing cars were built on the site by the company run by the motor racing pioneer Raymond Mays although the huge gasometer remained in use on the opposite side of the road for several years. By 1965, Bourne's supply was being piped in from North Killingholme on Humberside and there were 1,400 consumers in the town at that time with the demand rising steadily.

Responsibility for gas distribution subsequently passed from the council to the East Midlands Gas Board and then to British Gas in 1973. The popularity of gas as a domestic fuel remained undiminished but today the gasometer has gone from Bourne and our supply no longer comes from coal but from the North Sea and is brought into the town through a complicated pipeline network from the east coast.