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- Title
The Early Development of the British Gas Industry, 1790-1815.
- Authors
Falkus, M. E.
- Abstract
This article examines the origin and establishment of the gas industry in Great Britain. The gas industry has some distinctive claims to attention. Gas was one of those manufacturing enterprises developed first in Britain in the midst of the industrial revolution and an understanding of its evolution may shed light on the wider issue of invention and innovation in this critical period of British economic history. During the first half of the nineteenth century gas supplies were brought to all major towns and even to most small centers numbering no more than three thousand or so inhabitants. Investment in gas companies was substantial: capital stock was in the order of 11 million pound by 1846 and more than 20 million pound by 1860. Moreover, the industry was a major consumer of iron and coal, and its demands had a marked impact on particular sectors and regions. There are two paths along which commercial supplies of coal gas developed, namely the purchase by consumers of equipment with which to manufacture their own gas, and the establishment of gas companies which manufactured gas themselves and supplied it through street mains to consumers.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; GAS industry; INDUSTRIAL revolution; PETROLEUM industry; CAPITAL stock; GAS companies; TECHNOLOGICAL innovations
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1982, Vol 35, Issue 2, p217
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2595016