Gaslight, Distillation, and the Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Gaslight developed as an industry in Britain between 1795 and 1820, in the later part of the Industrial Revolution. Forms of the technology were, however, proposed by many people seemingly independently throughout Europe in the 25 years before 1 800. The most famous among the various engineers, instrument makers, and natural philosophers who used inflammable gases for lighting in the last quarter of the eighteenth century were William Murdoch in Britain and Philippe Lebon in France, who later became known as the inventors of gaslight.1 Neither the timing of the multiple invention of gaslight in the late eighteenth century nor its flourishing into an industry only in Britain have, however, been adequately explained. In regard to timing, some historians have even suggested that gaslight could easily have emerged earlier. Morris Berman, for example, argued that the technical knowledge needed to develop gaslight had been present for some time, and that it was the growing desire for security and social order on the part of the upper and middle classes that finally led to gaslight's emergence in the early nineteenth century.2 In another vein, the Clows suggested that the reason gaslight was not invented in the seventeenth century, despite knowledge of how to make inflammable airs, was that work hours were not yet long enough to need it; that the iron industry would have found it still very difficult to supply the necessary equipment; and that there was prejudice against coal-gas.3In this paper, I propose an explanation for the timing and the multiple invention of gaslight, together with its ultimate development in Britain, with reference to contemporary trends in natural philosophy and technology. Specifically, I argue that gaslight is best understood as an offshoot of an existing technological tradition - industrial distillation - which took on a different focus and separate form when inventors and engineers used knowledge and techniques borrowed from pneumatic chemistry to develop gas lighting. The timing of the invention of gaslight is explained by the coupling of the expansion of the distillation tradition in the last quarter of the eighteenth century throughout Europe with the contemporary expansion of pneumatic chemistry.The industrial process of distillation was used for the production of coke, charcoal, and various other substances such as tar and pyroligneous acid (a mixture of acetic acid, methanol, and other substances) by heating wood or coal in low-oxygen environments provided by closed ovens. Pneumatic chemistry, which catalyzed the partial transformation of distillation into gaslight, was a movement that had been gaining in depth and breadth particularly over the second half of the eighteenth century. It provided not only a knowledge and familiarity with the different sorts of inflammable gases and their properties, but also a number of scientific instruments and processes that were eventually incorporated into the gas plant.4 The gas industry was in effect born when inventors working on industrial distillation used knowledge coming from pneumatic chemistry in order to explore the possible uses of one of the products of distillation: gases.Explaining the timing of the invention of gaslight in the context of industrial distillation and pneumatic chemistry provides insight into broader issues concerning the origin and nature of technological innovation and industrial development in the Industrial Revolution. Gaslight, like so many other technologies and related industries, matured in Britain, while on the Continent, where the technology had also existed in seminal form, no gaslight industry developed until the 1820s.5 At that point it was largely British technology and expertise that helped establish the industry on the Continent.6 When, however, the technology's roots are traced to industrial distillation, a new perspective emerges. The thermolamp, the form of distillation Philippe Lebon instigated, did not die with him in 1804, but continued to evolve slowly, particularly in Germany, and led finally to Karl Ludwig Reichenbach's design after 1818 of a distillation oven for the production of various wood derivatives, particularly tar, methanol, acetone, and acetic acid. …