HKB
James Watt, junior, gave evidence on the subject. Henry Brougham, who was the counsel for the petitioners, made great fun of Winsor's absurd speculations,[10] and the Bill was thrown out.
In the following year the London and Westminster Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company succeeded in obtaining their Act. They were not very successful at first. Many prejudices existed against the employment of the new light. It was popularly supposed that the gas was carried along the pipes on fire, and that the pipes must necessarily be intensely hot. When it was proposed to light the House of Commons with gas, the architect insisted on the pipes being placed several inches from the walls, for fear of fire; and, after the pipes had been fixed, the members might be seen applying their gloved hands to them to ascertain their temperature, and afterwards expressing the greatest surprise on finding that they were as cool as the adjoining walls.
The Gas Company was on the point of dissolution when Mr. Samuel Clegg came to their aid. Clegg had been a pupil of Murdock's, at Soho. He knew all the arrangements which Murdock had invented. He had assisted in fitting up the gas machinery at the mills of Phillips & Lee, Manchester, as well as at Lodge's Mill, Sowerby Bridge, near Halifax. He was afterwards employed to fix the apparatus at the Catholic College of Stoneyhurst, in Lancashire, at the manufactory of Mr. Harris at Coventry, and at other places. In 1813 the London and Westminster Gas Company secured the services of Mr. Clegg, and from that time forwards their career was one of prosperity. In 1814 Westminster Bridge was first lighted with gas, and shortly after the streets of St. Margaret's, Westminster. Crowds of people followed the lamplighter on his rounds to watch the sudden effect of his flame applied to the invisible stream of gas which issued from the burner. The lamplighters became so disgusted with the new light that they struck work, and Clegg himself had for a time to act as lamplighter.
The advantages of the new light, however, soon became generally recognised, and gas companies were established in most of the large towns. Glasgow was lit up by gas in 1817, and Liverpool and Dublin in the following year. Had Murdock in the first instance taken out a patent for his invention, it could not fail to have proved exceedingly remunerative to him; but he derived no advantage from the extended use of the new system of lighting except the honour of having invented it.[11] He left the benefits of his invention to the public, and returned to his labours at Soho, which more than ever completely engrossed him.
Murdock now became completely identified with the firm of Boulton & Watt. He assigned to them his patent for the slide-valve, the rotary engine, and other inventions "for a good and valuable consideration." Indeed his able management was almost indispensable to the continued success of the Soho foundry. Mr. Nasmyth, when visiting the works about thirty years after Murdock had taken their complete management in hand, recalled to mind the valuable services of that truly admirable yet modest mechanic. He observed the admirable system, which he had invented, of transmitting power from one central engine to other small vacuum engines attached to the several machines which they were employed to work. "This vacuum method," he says, "of transmitting power dates from the time of Papin; but it remained a dead contrivance for about a century until it received the masterly touch of Murdock."