William Murdoch

William Murdoch (sometimes spelled Murdock) (August 21, 1754 - November 15, 1839) was a Scottish engineer and inventor. He was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham. He was the inventor of gas lighting in the early 1790s and coined the term gasometer. In addition to gas he made a number of innovations to the steam engine, including the sun and planet gear and D slide valve, invented the steam gun and pneumatic tube message system, worked on the first British paddle steamer to cross the English Channel, built a prototype steam locomotive in 1784 and made a number of discoveries in the field of chemistry. He remained an employee of Boulton and Watt until the 1830's and his reputation as an independent inventor has tended to be obscured by the reputations of those two men and the firm they founded.

Gas Lighting

The key invention for which Murdoch is best known is the application of gas lighting as a replacement for oil and tallow produced light. It was in 1792 that he first began experimenting with the use of gas, derived from the combustion of coal and other materials, for lighting. There is some uncertainty as to when he first demonstrated this process in practice, however most sources identify this as between 1792 and 1794.

Related Topics:
Gas lighting - Oil - Tallow - 1792 - Gas - 1794

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Inorder to use gas for practical purposes it was first necessary to develop a working method for the production and capture of the gas. There is considerable doubt as to the date by which this process was perfected. However numerous accounts exist that by 1794 Murdoch was producing coal gas from a small retort containing burning coals with a three or four foot iron tube attached, through which he piped the gas before sending it through an old gun barrel and igniting it to produce light.

Related Topics:
Retort - Iron - Gun

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It is frequently claimed that Murdoch's house at Redruth - or his cottage at Soho - was the first domestic residence to be lit by gas. While this claim can be more believably applied to his cottage in Redruth than to Soho most witnesses to his private demonstrations of gas lighting agree that his gas production and lighting apparatus was infact set up in his workshop or foundry in his yard, rather than the house itself and that there was no permanent gas lighting in place in his home. In view of the smell, risk of poisoning and chance of accidental combustion of this experimental method of lighting it is no surprise that it was not, even by its inventor, used as widely or as casually as is today often claimed.

Related Topics:
Foundry - Combustion

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Over the next few years Murdoch performed "a series of experiments upon the quantity and quality of the gasses contained in different substances" and upon the best way of transporting, storing, purifying and lighting these. It is known, by the account of William Fairbairn that Murdoch occasionally used his gas as a portable lantern.

Related Topics:
William Fairbairn - Lantern

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It was a dark winter's night and how to reach the house over such bed roads was a question not easily solved. Mr Murdoch, however, fruitful in resource, went to the gasworks where he filled a bladder which he had with him, and, placing it under his arm like a bagpipe, he discharged through the stem of an old tobacco pipe a stream of gas which enabled us to walk in safety to Medlock Bank.

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In 1798 Murdoch returned to Birmingham to work in the Soho foundry and continued his experiments with gas, as part of which he lit the interior of the Soho main building, although it is likely that it was lit only in part and not (at this time) permanently. In 1802 as part of the public celebrations of the Peace of Amiens he made a public exhibition of his lighting by illuminating the exterior of the Soho Foundry. The first industrial factory to be illuminated by gas was the Philips and Lee cotton mill in Manchester which was fully lit by Murdoch in 1805, four years after the idea was first broached. Initially this mill contained 50 gas lights, although this soon grew to 904. The length of time taken to complete this project was partly due to experimentations and improvements in the process developed by Murdoch to make the lighting of a large factory by gas practicable & cost effective - such as purifying the gas with lime to remove the smell and determining the best temperature to heat coal to obtain the maximum quantity of gas - although Murdoch continued to be involved in other engine work for Boulton and Watt, which took up much of his time.

Related Topics:
1798 - 1802 - Peace of Amiens - Cotton - Manchester - 1805 - Lime - Temperature

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Despite his pioneering work with gas Murdoch never made any money from this invention due to his failure to obtain a patent; which may have been partly a result of the advice of James Watt, Junior, that the discovery was not patentable; and partly due to the commercial failure of his earlier patent of 1791 for an early form of aniline dye. This failure to apply for a patent, despite the commercial participation of Boulton and Watt in this field, left the fledgeling industry of gas production and lighting open for exploitation by other commercial interests, such as his former assistant Samuel Clegg and Friedrich Winzer. In large part this was due to the failure of Boulton and Watt to make sufficient effort to expand from the factory and mill lighting market which they dominated by 1809 into the street and domestic lighting market. This reason for this lassitude is unknown but can be attribute to lack of interest, a misappreciation of the size of the potential market and a lack of desire to be involved in smaller less prestigious projects. By May 1809 Boulton and Watt faced little competition in any gas market due to their success in lobbying Parliament to block the granting of a charter for the National Heat and Light Company, their only real competitior in this field. However despite blocking the charter until 1812 this advantage was squandered as Boulton and Watt did not develop ther gas market, or technology, and in 1814 abandoned the gas business.

Related Topics:
1791 - Aniline dye - Samuel Clegg - Friedrich Winzer - 1809 - Lobbying - Parliament - National Heat and Light Company - 1812 - 1814

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