Gas in Reading

The history of the Reading gas industry has been created as a separate IA Topic to the gas industries in the rest of Berkshire because of the amount of information known and also because BAIG were able to document the decommissioning of the last gas holder on the site in 2022.  The article ‘Gas in Berkshire’ can be found here. A bibliography of references and sources is included at the end of the ‘Gas in Berkshire’ article.

If you know more about the gas industry in Reading, please contact us on contact@BIAG.org.uk

Reading Gas 1819

In 1819 Reading became one of the first provincial towns to supply coal gas through the foundation of the Reading Gas Light Company.  This made it a pioneer as it was only seven years after the first gas undertaking in the world, the Chartered Gas Light and Coke, started supplying gas in Westminster.

The Windsor and Eton Express in 1818 reported that subscriptions towards the £10,000 (equivalent to around £860,000 in 2020) needed for the Reading Gas Light Company to erect buildings, purchase and lay-down of pipes, and establish a complete apparatus for lighting the whole of the town with gas was proceeding well.  Subscribers purchased shares at £10 each with an anticipated return of 5% per annum.  One share entitled one vote at Company meetings on a sliding scale a maximum of five votes regardless of how many shares were owned.

The Reading Mercury in 1817 had mentioned that a gas lamp was in place ‘which throws a brilliant light on the Bear Inn and part of Seven Bridges’ and that many persons of respectability had expressed their wishes to have the Market Place of Reading and the street immediately adjacent lighted by gas’.   By late 1818 there are sufficient funds to commence a local gas works and The Reading Mercury reports that ‘seven gentlemen residing in the Borough of Reading, or its immediate vicinity, and are members of this Association and who are subscribers thereto to the amount of ten shares at the least, be appointed to act as Trustees in managing the funds of the Company.’

As can be seen from the comments above at this time gas was seen as a provider of lighting, and much less as the heating source we now consider it to be.  From the late 1700s the Paving Commissioners had required that lighting be provided by each house hanging a light out front at night between Michaelmas (29th September) and Lady Day (25th March).  By 1811, as a result of criticism, 218 wick-based lamps were introduced; a number which had grown to 235 by late 1817.  The arrival of the Reading Gas Light Company changed street lighting in Reading forever and by 1819 the town’s main streets were provided with gas lighting to both illuminate and to increase safety.  The Reading Mercury from 1819 reported that ‘Yesterday (November 5^th) being the anniversary of Gun Powder Plot, the bells rang out as usual at the Parish Churches, and in the evening the gas lights, which have been some time preparing in this town, were lighted up for the very first time.  Everything answered well, and conferred honour on all the parties concerned’.

On 21st May 1819 the first stone of the gas works was laid by Alderman Annesley.  To celebrate there was a dinner at the Upper Ship Inn in Reading.  The gasworks was located in central Reading on the north bank of the River Kennet between Bridge Street and London Street in Reading, in what is now the Oracle shopping centre.

For many people producing ‘Town Gas’ is a long-distant memory having been replaced by the much cleaner ‘Sea Gas’ in the 1960s and 70s.  The production of gas was a dirty business as can be seen from an 1829 report on the Gas Light and Coke Company which described “Extreme lassitude and depression of spirits, frightful nightmare, dreams, nausea and sickness in the morning, loss of appetite, inaptitude for business, a filthy stench, as if some indescribable nastiness were being constantly inhaled. In the morning (for it is during the night that the exhalations are most active) the air is often evidently saturated with impurity, and even the curtains and hangings in bedchambers are described as being, in some states of the wind, covered with a filthy gaseous slime.”  The memories from a resident who lived in London Road, Reading was that, if she had a bad cold, she was taken to the gas works and made to breathe in the fumes from the coal-tar vat.

In order to understand the Reading gasworks site, we need to understand the making of Town Gas.  It required coal to be placed in a sealed vessel called a retort – there would normally be a number of retorts in the Retort House.  The coal was heated in an oxygen-free environment where, instead of combusting, the volatile components were driven off leaving a relatively pure form of carbon called coke as a residue.  The hot products leaving the Retort were cooled in the condenser; most of the tar & oil compounds were trapped as coal tar.  The gas was then washed in the scrubbers to remove soluble products such as ammonia and phenol (ammoniacal liquor), then enter the purifier to remove sulphur and cyanide products.

This treated product is then stored in the gas holder. The earliest Boulton and Watt gas holders were wood-lined single-lift containers, but quite soon telescoping holders with external fixed frame, visible at a fixed height at all times were developed. These holders are basically a gas-filled floating vessel on a circular water reservoir, with the water providing a gas-tight seal. Besides storing the gas, the weight of the gas holder lift (cap) controlled the pressure of the gas in the mains, and provided back pressure for the gas-making plant.

By the 1830s the public’s view of the Reading Gas Light Company had become jaded.  It is speculated that this is due to poor management or envy at the profits being made, but as there is little information on the intervening period between the set up and this juncture it is hard to verify.  In 1832 and 1833 complaints were made about the poor street lighting and some attributed coach accidents to this situation.  Then in 1835 there is a report that the charge for gas had to be significantly reduced from 15s to 12s 6d per 1000 cubic feet after the Company’s profits were accidentally disclosed.   At the same time The Reading Mercury reports that notice was given to parliament to allow the Company to extend its gas lighting to the parishes of St Mary, St Lawrence and St Giles in Reading, and to Whitley, Sonning, Earley, Tilehurst and Caversham.

The Berkshire Chronicle on 2^nd January 1836 published a prospectus for a new gas company in Reading.  The reason for requiring a new company is stated as the large increase in the population of the town and the notorious mismanagement of the present gasworks.  They go on to say that as the current gasworks is in the very centre of the town, the removal of waste materials and the contamination of the waters through leakage, along with the intolerable smell, are reducing the value of neighbouring properties and endangering the health of individuals.  They also cite as a failing of the Reading Gas Light Company that the penetration of gas into private accommodation is poor as in many towns in England at this time homes had gas light and were also using gas for heating and cooking.   This new company is also hoping to take on the supply of gas to the expected depot of the Great Western Railway.  The management of the Reading Gas Light Company fought back against the accusations, and in February 1836 the Berkshire Chronicle reported that they encouraged the public to review their annual accounts showing that the surplus profits had been put back into the company and offer increased share allotment to allow those who suggest improvements to join the company to see them implemented.

The new company – The Reading Union Gas Company – was inaugurated in late November 1835.  This saw the commencement of a fierce competition between the Companies which lead to a reduction in gas prices to both the individual consumers and the Reading Corporation for town lighting.  The Reading Union Gas Company entered into a three-year contract to light the public lamps at a reduction of £1 3s 4d per lamp per annum as compared to its rival.  This resulted in a saving to the public of £800 per annum (equivalent to nearly £92,000 in 2020).  It is said, but not verified, that the companies signed up customers but then connected them to the rival’s gas pipes in the streets, thus getting the returns without the outlay.

This rivalry proved to be an issue for the companies, if not the public who ‘to the delight of very many of the townspeople who had no shares in the corners, the price of gas was brought down to a price which in those days was a novelty of cheapness’ according to J B Jones.  With Reading not being large enough to sustain two companies in their destructive endeavours, on 30^th June 1862, the two gas companies, Reading Gas Light Company and Reading Union Gas Company were amalgamated by Act of Parliament into the Reading Gas Company.  Mr J Okey Taylor became the first Chairman, having been the Chairman of the Reading Union Gas Company. He continued to be Chairman for another 48 years which was in to his 80th year.

At the beginning gas was manufactured on the old Reading Gas Light Company’s site in Bridge Street and at the Union Gas Company’s premises by the Kennet and Avon Canal, which was where the old governor house now stands on Gas Works Road.  However, under the 1880 Reading Gas Act the Company gained the right to increase their capital and they purchased new land in east Reading known as King’s Mead.  This land was subject to winter floods so the gas works area had to be raised which was above the flood line. Its location is now only given away by the presence of Gas Works Road, the Gas Bridge and the single gas holder shell. Under the same act much of their old gas works area was transferred to Huntley & Palmers. Work stated in 1881 and the site was bought in to use by 1888.

The site covered about 13 acres, bounded on the south by the canal and north by the railway, with a siding feeding into the site and to the retort house where the coal is heated to generate the gas.  In the spring of 1888 the works, which had been designed by Edward Baker – the Company’s Engineer and Manager, were commissioned.

The site comprised the retort house, which along with the coal store was 265 feet by 112 feet. It housed two retort stacks each with eleven sets of eight D-shaped brick retorts of 22 inches by 16 inches by 20 feet long. Coal was delivered directly to the retort house by the railway trucks, which after being weighed, was tipped on end into coal breakers by steam machinery. The coal was then ‘broken’ and lifted into overhead storage hoppers.

Reading Gas Company was one of the first to introduce machinery into this process and, prior to this, men had to fill and push four lots of 5cwt coal into each retort 5 times in every 24 hours using long hand rakes. The mechanisation (De Brouwer Patent Stoking machinery), as well as speeding the process, allowed double the coal weight to be loaded thus reducing the number of loadings to 3 every 24 hours. The mechanisation reduced costs, but also reduced the manpower required. Much of the machinery and the coal conveyor were driven by electricity generated by two on-site gas engines.

The gas produced in the retort house was first cooled within the building using the 338 feet of 18” steel piping and 825 feet of 18” cast iron piping on the retort house walls, it was then conveyed to the three water tube condensers through a 20” main.  Cooling the gas was an essential part of removing impurities, which later were sold on as by-products.  This part of the process mainly removed tar.  The gas then passed the Exhauster House whose role was to drawn the gas out of the retort house and push it on to the next processes.  The Exhauster House had 3 Beale Exhausters driven by Gwynne Vertical engines with an overall capacity of 192 cubic feet per hour.

The gas next passed through the Washers and Scrubbers – these processes continued to remove tar but also other impurities such as ammonia and phenolic compounds.  The King’s Mead site had 3 Livesey Washers and 2 tower scrubbers and a mechanical Kirkham, Hulett and Chandler Patent Washer Scrubber.  Still not clean enough to be distributed the gas not enters the Purifier to have Hydrogen Sulphides and Hydrogen Cyanides removed.  The site had eight purifiers of around 28 feet by 28 feet, with seven using lime as the purifier and one charged with Iron Oxide.

The cleaned gas passed to the Meter House, which had two Parkinson and Cowan Station Meters, which could each had a 60,000 c. ft. capacity.

When first built the site had one large gas holder. For a while the original Gas Holder in Bridge Street was retained with its capacity of 150k c. ft.

To access the new site the then private Gasworks Road was built, and to cross the River Kennet a brick and iron ‘gas bridge’ was constructed in 1881-1882.  As part of the design, again by Edward Blake, the metal bridge has two integrated 24” mains; these can still be seen on the outside of the metal girders at road level.

Prior to 1890 the Company’s focus was on gas production and sales, but in this year they built a showroom on the works site to display cooking and heating appliances that were for hire.  As the sales of appliances grew the Company’s management, who had originally operated on site and then at 22 Market Place, moved to 7 Kings Street in 1896.  They finally opened a showroom and office situated on the corner of Friar Street and Cross Street in the town centre in 1905, designed by G W Webb.  This site is now occupied by the estate agent Haslams.

Over time the site at King’s Mead expanded; Gas Holder No 3, with a capacity of 1.1k c. ft., was added in 1901.  This gas holder was constructed in a steel tank rather than the brick tank of Gas Holder No 2.  This was because during the construction of the earlier tank large amounts of water ingress from the site had impeded the construction.  The new tank required excavation to a depth of 13ft 6in to reach the gravel bed on to which a 3ft thick concrete bed was laid for the steel tank.  Even with these adaptations, there still needed to be significant pumping to keep the area free of water from springs on the site that fed into the River Thames. The tank itself was 153 feet in diameter and 23 feet deep and protruded 12 ½ feet above ground level.  When full with the water that sealed the gas into the holder it held 2,638,000 gallons.  Its construction cost £27,000.

The Company continued to expand its public facing sales introducing in 1902 a maintenance scheme for incandescent mantels in domestic premises.  The incandescent mantel was invented in 1886 and was a replacement for the old flat-flame burners.  The maintenance charge was 3s per burner per annum.  The scheme was very productive and by 1906 the company were servicing 11,000 burners and had reduced the maintenance cost to 1s.

In 1902 the company also started supplying gas to small domestic properties using pre-payment meters.  While this method attracted a higher cost for the gas it had the benefit of the company installing the meter, piping and lighting brackets and also including a stove free of charge. Take up was very popular.

In October 1903 the large Governor House, that we now see derelict on Gasworks Road by the bridge, was erected to support the growing number of distribution gas mains that the company now had. It was designed by the Company’s new Engineer and Manager Douglas Helps who had been appointed earlier that year and later wrote the retrospective of the Reading Gas Company.  Gas governors act to regulate and reduce gas pressure from the plant making it suitable for the mains piping that takes the gas to the customers.  This new Governor House contained a large Gas Distributing Cylinder and three Governors that distributed gas to the town and western district, the eastern district and the Caversham district respectively.   The construction on the site included a workingmen’s club which still has a sign over the door saying it was erected in 1903 under the auspices of the Chairman, J Okey Taylor and references Douglas Helps.  The club, after an extension in 1912, had a reading room on the ground floor that held local and London daily papers and periodicals.  The mess room on the second floor included a large cooking range, plus there was a shower and slipper baths, wash basins and lavatories – these facilities had constant hot water, which for the time was quite rare.  There was also a games room with an air-rifle range.  When the new Governor House was completed the old one on the Kings Mead site was dismantled; it was the last of the original plant to go.

With gas consumption increasing rapidly it was decided to augment the productive capacity of the works and in 1905 an Oil Gas Plant built that could produce 550,000 c. ft. of gas per day.  This plant used crude petroleum oils and derived distillate fractions that were cheaper alternatives to the coal resources which were becoming increasingly expensive and of lower quality.  This technology had another benefit in being free of ammonia and cyanide which reduced the cost and space needed for processing, but did also reduce the sales from by-products.  The new plant had its own exhauster, gas holder, purifier and metering.

The Company also started to manufacture sulphate of ammonia at 55 tons per day, from the by-products of the gas production.  This product was used as a fertiliser and 100 tons were sold locally each year (potentially to Sutton’s, the seedsman) and 300 tons were exported.  Lime from the gas purification process was also sold for use by local farmers, while the waste products of coke, breeze, ashes and tar are sold on to local businesses.  Coke and breeze (a type of coke) was used as fuel, ashes were used as a fertiliser and tar had many uses.  These sales helped to reduce the cost of gas production, or to increase the shareholder profits.

1903 also saw the Company’s mains to Tilehurst extended.  In 1907 mains were built out to Three Mile Cross and Spencers Wood, and then later out to Tilehurst Station, Shinfield and School Green.  While the Company had a legal right to charge a higher price for gas to consumers outside of the Borough it actually maintained a consistent rate across its distribution area.

Prior to 1904 Reading streets were lit by flat flame burners which gradually lost brightness and by midnight were very dim.  Reading Corporation challenged the Reading Gas Company and the Reading Electric Supply Company to come up with improvements.  Both ran lighting experiments in King’s Road in July and October 1903.  Reading Corporation chose incandescent gas lamps to light the whole Borough.   In October 1904 The Berkshire Chronicle reported as part of the Reading municipal elections that since July 1904, when there were 1,274 flat-flamed burner street lamps in the Borough, this number had risen to 1,800 incandescent lamps.  It is stated that every court, alley and cul-de-sac in Church, Redland and East Wards have at least one public lamp.  Reading is described as ‘one of the best lighted towns in the Provinces’.

Financially the Company had increased production by over 1200% in the 47 years to 1912 reaching 614,116,000 c. ft. of gas sold.  The cost of 1,000 c. ft. gas had fallen from 5s to 2s 4d.  Customer numbers were recorded from 1881, and in the following 30 years the numbers rose from 2,883 to 17,281 and to support them 108 miles of gas mains had been laid.  By 1912 the Company were hiring out 13,487 cooking stoves and 2,628 gas fires, and this is in addition to those that had been purchased outright.  The Company was also proud of not charging for the rental of meters unlike many provincial gas companies.

The one gas holder now remaining on the site is a later edition completed in 1916 – it was known as Gas Holder No 4.  A photograph from The Reading Museum Collection (Object No 2007.572.3) shows the foundation of the gas holder being laid with ‘Simplex’ piles being driven.  The gentleman in white is Mr L. A. Rumble, who was the site representative for the construction contractor Messrs C. & W. Walker of Donnington and who later became Assistant Engineer to the Reading Gas Company.  Behind the construction is the Sulphate of Ammonia plant, built in 1893; sulphate of ammonia was a by-product of the gas processing and was sold on as fertiliser.  On the Reading site the apparatus could distil 55 tons of ammoniacal liquor in 24 hours.  This plant later housed the Liquor Concentration Plant.  Ammoniacal liquors were another by-product of town gas processing; it comprised up to 1% ammonia and traces of sulphate, phenol, ferrocyanide and thiocyanate.  While it could be used directly as fertiliser most town gas sites used a plant to heat and concentrate the liquor which was then sent on to chemical works to make ammonium sulphate fertiliser.  This, along with many other by-products of town gas sites, are hazardous and often entered the surrounding soil and are the reason why such sites are very expensive to reclaim.

We see from an event for returning soldiers from World War I in January 1920 that of the 310 men who were employed by the Company in July 1914 162 joined up, of these 15 were lost.  Douglas Helps, the chief engineer, thanked the workforce who through the previous five or six years of stress and strain had helped to maintain the gas supply.

A report in the Reading Observer in May 1921 paints an interesting picture of the gas supply situation.  Seemingly the Reading Gas Company had issued a threat to cut off households who do not reduce their gas supply.  This situation is brought about by the 1921 miners’ strike reducing coal supplies.

An 1886 report by the public accountant, Donald Kennedy, states that “the gas supplied by the Reading Gas Company is not first rate, its illuminating power being under average for England, Scotland and Ireland.  It will be noticed too, that the gas supplied by local authorities is, on average, a much better article than that supplied by Companies”.  The report also looks at the finances of the Company and notes that its working expenditure is proportionally greater than most of the other private and public gas companies comparing it to Scottish gasworks that produce gas giving on average 80% more light at only ½d more per 1,000 c. ft.  The report also criticises gains made against the price of coal and concludes that, if economically managed, the Company could save its consumers at least £6,000 per year and compared against the best managed gasworks around £41,808 per annum.  This report starts a process that would move gas works towards public management.

In the 1920s and 1930s the Reading Gas Company took over a number of local gas providers in Berkshire, including the Pangbourne Gas Light and Coke Company in 1924.  A report of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Reading Gas Company in the Reading Observer in March 1924 noted that the Extraordinary General Meeting following on approved the plan to purchase the Pangbourne undertaking and take the application to the Board of Trade.  The AGM also heard that gas sales had been the largest in the Company’s history at over 73 m c. ft. and there had been a reduction in the price of gas charged by 22% in the previous two years; some of this change would have been a reflection of the hike in gas prices caused by the 1921 miners’ strike.  By now the Company had on hire more than 19,000 cookers and over 8,000 gas fires.

With the 1948 Gas Act, Clement Atlee’s government nationalised the gas industry bringing 1,064 privately-owned and municipal gas companies into 12 gas boards.  The Reading Gas Company became part of the Southern Gas Board with the Reading gasworks being the second largest in the region.  By 1973 it was part of the British Gas Corporation.   In this period a site was developed on the south side of the River Thames just past where it merges with the Kennet and Avon Canal.  This site used to contain two gas holders, but these were removed in the 1990s.  The new site is still linked to the Reading gasworks site on King’s Mead by the ‘gas bridge’ across the canal.  In 1966 the Southern Gas Board invested more than £1 million in new plant to produce 30 m c. ft. per day from naphtha gas brought in by rail from the Esso refinery at Fawley and methane by pipeline from Canvey Island – no longer was the Reading site a local operation.

In late 1960s the original site in Kings Mead was starting to be decommissioned and demolished and for many years all that remained was a single gas holder, the bridge and the governor house and social club.  The last gas holder was demolished in 2022.

In March 2022 the decommissioning programme for Reading’s iconic gas holder began.  However, prior to this in September 2021 BIAG were given special access to enter the site with the programme manager and photograph the remaining equipment.  Here is a selection of those pictures:

Throughout March and April 2022 BIAG has documented the demise of the gas holder.  While standing on the canal side it has been lovely to strike up conversations with those who had known the gas holder for much of their lives; some had worked on the site, some lived with its presence looming over their homes and some just passed it every day on the way to work.  The demolition brought us all together to mark the passing of an era and share our memories.  While the gas holder will be missed the demolition process has had many positives.  As well as the buzz of conversation around the area, a local group – Reading Gas Tower has set up displaying photographs and paintings of the many moods of the gas holder – there has even been a children’s book written about the holder.  It is sad to see its passing, but maybe it has kindled a community spirit that will continue and give drive to preserving the little that is left of Reading’s industrial past.   Below are some of the photographs we have captured during this time.

We’ll miss the sight of the gas holder looming over the Reading skyline, so to end this section there is a set of exquisite photographs taken by Matt Emmett, a member of the Reading Art & Heritage Forum.  What better way to show the majesty of our industrial architecture and say goodbye to a dear old friend.