© The Geological Society of London 2006 1 Technical history of the town gas plants of the British Isles

Abstract: All of Europe contributed in some way to the discovery of manufactured gas, but it was in Birmingham, England that this great industrial process first emerged commercially to light the world in 1805. British gas plants constituted a world model for design, layout and operational technology. Their manner of establishment was unique to Britain, where only a few large gas companies were established under royal charter while a greater number emerged under individual Statutory Acts of Parliament, but most were simply self-incorporated. Because of these variable conditions of origin, this paper presents the first attempt at a freely accessible, comprehensive listing of UK gas works. Due to the patchwork of gas works origins, including steady acquisition of commercial gas works by towns and cities, many older and smaller works were abandoned and no longer appear in the firmament of plants scheduled for remediation prior to new land uses. Some of this obscurity came after the 1947 nationalization of the gas industry, which was entirely manufactured in nature. Nationalization created twelve regional gas boards and the remaining smaller plants were erased from active memory through improvements in higher-pressure gas distribution from centrally located urban stations. As there is no single list of historic UK gas works, the senior author has spent 12 years searching and codifying the UK record. The new database has been assessed to compile this paper and to display (via fou