This Power Point Presentation was developed from an article that I was writing for the publication known as “Historic Gas Times” which is produced by the Gas History Panel of the Institution of Gas Engineers. As some of you may know my forbears were in on the beginnings of the Gas Industry and William Sugg started a business in 1837 based in Westminster that became famous for gas lighting as well as every other use for gas – but that’s another story. Tower Bridge is only a stone’s throw from the Sugg factory in Westminster but the task of lighting this new bridge occurred at what you might call a ‘sensitive time’ in the development of gas for lighting.
The presentation showed both the construction of the bridge itself with some extraordinary illustrations and photos of how it was built and some of the history and development of gas lighting with the beginnings of the competition from the early stages of electric lighting.
There are lots of historic records of the story behind the choice of the type of bridge that has become such an iconic feature of London. There were competitions for the design of a new crossing with many different approaches including that of a tunnel and there were several detractors who thought the whole ‘Gothic Masonry’ design of the final choice as inappropriate and even immoral! In fact, the bridge is a steel suspension and bascule design clad with granite as was shown during the talk. In the end Queen Victoria was invited to lay the foundation stone in 1886. She deputed the task to the Prince of Wales, later to become Edward VII and he also presided over the opening ceremony on 30th June 1894.
Very little is mentioned of the lighting but, by reference to many sources including the Annual General Meeting of the Sugg Company on 10th November 1892 which notes that their “tender for the lighting of the Tower Bridge, now in course of erection, has been accepted, and the work commenced.” Various Annual and Half yearly Meeting reports mention “the work progressing to the satisfaction of the Engineer and the Corporation Authorities.” It was interesting to note that in the Half Yearly meeting of 1895 a comment is made that the “orders for High Power Lamps have increased.”
Illustrations of the various stages of the development of gas for lighting were shown to clarify where it had reached by this last decade of the 19th Century from the humble jet through many improvements such as the ‘flat flame’ issuing from a slit that provided more light from each flat side through to the almost accidental discovery of ‘incandescence’ by Count Auer von Welsbach, that finally led to the complete transformation of gas lighting with the gas ‘mantle’.
The progress of the Tower Bridge project was right across this later ‘transformation’ and also whilst the electricians were still trying to solve many problems and had really only the arc lamp to show as a means of lighting large spaces.
Some wonderful pictures of the truly handsome huge hexagonal open flame lamps were on show and one remarkable picture from my collection of some actual Sugg employees gathered on the bridge at the later stages of the contract.
The opening ceremony – with due note of the lamps in the pictures was followed by many later pictures of the growth of traffic and, along with that the changes to the lighting from open flame to the first upright incandescent mantle, to William Sugg’s improvement using ‘high pressure’ gas along with the upright mantle. Then to the large inverted i.e. pointing downward, mantle and finally the cluster of several smaller ‘superheated’ inverted mantles, each of these steps improving the lighting as the traffic steadily increased. Even the use of gas-powered floodlights to light the opening bascules was shown along with the replacement of the huge lamps with much smaller ones because the mantle gave 5 times the light from the same amount of gas so the heat that had necessitated the size of the lamps was no longer a factor.
The fact that the gas lighting that also lit the high-level walkways and all the interior spaces was not replaced or converted to electricity until 1966 bears testament to the longevity of the product and even today there are 4 of the original William Sugg hexagonal lanterns – sadly not still ‘in gas’ but converted to electricity – in the museum towers for the tourists to see when making a visit to the icon that is Tower Bridge.
CS
The Lighting of the Tower Bridge as commented on by the Journal of Gas Lighting, Water Supply, etc of Aug 21st 1894 makes an excellent final paragraph for those of you who have read this far!!
Speaking paradoxically, the most striking recent incident in connection with the progress of the electric light in the City of London is the adoption of gas for lighting the Tower Bridge. We recently published a description of the lamps and gas burners used for this purpose; and it only remains for us to bear witness to the success that has attended the efforts of the contractors– Messrs, William Sugg and Co., Limited–to justify the preference accorded to gas by the Engineer and the Bridge Committee. Our readers will hardly need argument to be persuaded of the wisdom of this selection; but it is notorious that the substitution of electric lighting for gas, in the majority of instances where this change has been effected, has not been determined by an impartial comparison of the merits of the two systems. We are not concerned to deny that electric lighting is the more fashionable method for important streets and show places; so that its adoption in many instances has been advocated and carried out as a matter of course, and a point of municipal ”progress” which was not to be discussed with reference to sordid considerations of cost or other material questions. Over and over again, gas companies and others have demonstrated the advantages of gas for street lighting, and have proved its capacity for almost unlimited improvement at the minimum of cost; but, notwithstanding these efforts, the fashion of electric lighting for first class thoroughfares has established a hold upon local authorities which has seemed to defy considerations of economy and efficiency. In these circumstances, it is surprising that the Tower Bridge authorities should have hesitated a moment in lighting the structure by electricity, more particularly as the interest of the City of London Electric Lighting Company has been very dear to the Mansion House. It appears, however, that even the Bridge Committee recoiled before the enormous expense of an electric light installation for the job; while the Thames Conservancy had something very serious to say about the danger to navigation that arc lighting would entail. So, gas was chosen; and the result is satisfactory to all concerned. The bridge and its approaches are a perfect example of mild, equably distributed lighting; and while the expenditure upon this necessary service is comparatively small, the lamps are so disposed as to guide and assist rather than dazzle and perplex users of the waterway. The whole thing is an object lesson which the partisans of electric lighting may profitably study.
