Nos. 93–95 Pall Mall: F. A. Winsor
and the development of gas lighting
Occupied part of the site subsequently occupied until
1940 by the Carlton Club, and now by 'No. 100 Pall Mall'
In the early nineteenth century three of the
houses which formerly stood on the site of the
Carlton Club were occupied by Frederick Albert
Winsor (1763–1830), an early pioneer of gas
lighting and one of the first to develop the use of
coal gas for street illumination. (ref. 71) He was of German origin and had obtained what knowledge he
possessed of gas-lighting technique from the
Frenchman, Le Bon. (ref. 73) Realizing its potentialities, and with sufficient aplomb to attract attention
to his extravagant schemes, Winsor set himself up
as an authority on gas lighting, although 'he
possessed scarcely any knowledge of chemistry,
and was so deficient in mechanical information,
that he was unable to give proper directions for the
construction of apparatus'. (ref. 74) It is, therefore,
surprising that this ill-equipped and volatile
foreigner was able, in the face of formidable
opposition, to achieve a substantial degree of
success as the first entrepreneur of the gas industry in Britain.
He opened his campaign in Brunswick, but in
1803 he moved to London, which then provided
the safest and the largest market in which to sell
his ideas and was perhaps the only place where he
could use Le Bon's French patent with impunity.
He started distributing pamphlets advocating gas
lighting and began a series of public lectures and
demonstrations at the Lyceum Theatre. (ref. 75) Considerable interest was aroused, a 'Society' of subscribers founded to finance further research, (ref. 76) and
in 1807 Winsor took over two houses on the south
side of Pall Mall which were later numbered 94–
95. (ref. 34) Here he installed his demonstration equipment and continued his lectures. (ref. 77) These new
premises could not have been in a better position
for Winsor's purpose. According to the report of
the trustees of his subscription fund, Pall Mall
'being one of the approaches to the King's palace,
and the residence of his Royal Highness the Prince
of Wales, and, from other circumstances of local
convenience, it had advantages for the display of
their experiments, far beyond any other situation
in the Metropolis'. (ref. 78)
This favourable reception and the increasing
number and importance of the subscribers to his
'Society', encouraged Winsor to celebrate the
King's birthday on 4 June 1807 by staging a public demonstration along the garden wall between
Carlton House and St. James's Park. The permission of the Prince of Wales was, of course,
necessary, but luckily his 'noble independent mind
induced [him] . . . to become one of the exalted
patrons of this infant project'. (ref. 79) The gas lights
were fed by an iron pipe from 'the two close
carbonizing iron furnaces' in Winsor's Pall Mall
premises. 'The light produced by these gas lamps
was clear, bright, and colourless, and from the
success of this considerable experiment, in point of
the number of lights, the distance and length of
pipe, hopes may now be entertained, that this
long-talked of mode of lighting our streets may at
length be realized. The Mall continued crowded
with spectators, until near twelve o'clock, and
they seemed much amused and delighted by this
novel exhibition.' (ref. 80)
In October 1807 Winsor applied to the parish
paving committee for permission to place at each
of the extremities of his premises in Pall Mall, an
ornamental column holding three lamps on three
different branches. These were to serve, so he
said, as specimens of a new mode of lighting the
whole length of Pall Mall. Permission was withheld, however, until the committee members had
attended Winsor's rooms to see the effect of his
invention. (ref. 81)
At the end of 1807 (with or without the permission of the paving committee, for their minutes
are silent on this point) thirteen lamp-posts, each
with three gas jets, were eventually erected on the
south side of Pall Mall, extending westwards
from Winsor's premises to the corner facing St.
James's Street. (ref. 82) When these were lit up the
experiment again proved a success. More lamps
were then erected between Winsor's premises and
the Cockspur Street end of Pall Mall, as shown in
a contemporary illustration of the street in
Ackermann's Repository of Arts. (ref. 83) Winsor was
now operating two large and four small furnaces
from his premises in Pall Mall, (ref. 84) and in 1810 he
took over a third house later numbered 93 Pall
Mall. (fn. 34)
Nevertheless, Winsor had some difficulty in
persuading the paving committee to allow the gas
lamps to remain standing in Pall Mall, and,
although this was eventually granted, further permission was necessary before they could be lit. (ref. 85)
The new lamps were never in regular nightly use,
and were only turned on occasionally and by permission. In February 1808 four men were paid a
guinea each 'to watch Lamps during the night of
experiment'. (ref. 86) On the evening of the following
4 June the lamps were again lit to celebrate the
King's birthday. In his application for permission
Winsor had on this occasion added, 'I hope there
will be no objection to my announcing that the
Lamps will only be lighted on this occasion and by
special permission.' (ref. 85) In December he made
another successful application. (ref. 87) By then he had
formed the National Light and Heat Company,
and as it was intended to apply for an Act of Parliament which would enable the new company to be
incorporated by royal charter, it was even more
desirable that the proof of Winsor's success should
continue a little longer. (ref. 88)
It is probable that more displays of gas lighting
continued to be staged in Pall Mall during 1809
and 1810. Winsor's idea of a national gas
monopoly had, however, been abandoned. The
new Gas Light and Coke Company, which had
superseded the National Heat and Light Company
and which aimed at limiting its activities to London, Westminster and Southwark, was then promoting; a Bill of incorporation in Parliament and it
would have been to its advantage to continue the
successful demonstrations during the parliamentary discussions. (ref. 89) After 1810 the Pall Mall
experiments seem to have been discontinued as no
longer necessary.
In November 1814 the newly incorporated
Gas Light and Coke Company obtained the permission of the St. James's vestry committee to lay
down gas mains in Pall Mall and other important
streets in the parish, for the purpose of house
lighting. (ref. 90) Five years later the vestry abandoned
the old method of street lighting and made a contract with the gas company. Piccadilly, Coventry
Street and part of Princes Street were the first
streets in the parish to have a permanent system of
gas lighting installed by the parish, (ref. 91) although St.
James's Square had been so lit by its Trustees in
1817 (see page 69). Gas lighting was extended
to Pall Mall in 1820 (ref. 92) and to the rest of the
parish shortly afterwards.
Winsor had long ceased to be the moving spirit
behind the whole scheme. He continued to live in
No. 95 Pall Mall until 1815, the other two houses
being given up, one to the Gas Light and Coke
Company which retained it until 1814; one of
them was occupied in 1815 by the Waterloo
Museum. (ref. 93) From its foundation, the company
was dominated by financial interests and Winsor
remained merely as a technical adviser. Even this
function was taken away in 1812 with the appointment of Frederick Accum, a 'Practical Chymist',
as a director and of Samuel Clegg as the company
engineer. The directors found Winsor an
embarrassing liability and when he fled to France
in 1815 to escape his creditors, they removed him
from the board and took away the annuity paid to
him in recognition of his pioneering efforts. In
France Winsor succeeded in floating another
company but this came to disaster in 1819. He
died in 1830. (ref. 94)