THE FIRST GREENWICH GAS WORKS AND HOW IT FELL DOWN

THE FIRST GREENWICH GAS WORKS AND HOW IT FELL DOWN

The biggest and most successful Gas Company in South and Kentish London in the early 1820s was the Phoenix Gas Light and Coke Co. based in the Borough.  They were to become the main suppliers of gas in Greenwich and operated an important gas works in the town.  In Greenwich there had been a great deal of trouble over the proposal that the vestry back a gas works to be built by a Mr. Goslings.  Complaints had been made by a rival, Mr. Hedley, whose tender had been ignored.  Eventually the  works built by Mr. Gosling's, was to be taken over by the Phoenix Company and they were to be the main supplier of lights to Greenwich for many.

Before this could happen, in 1824 Gosling proceeded to build his Greenwich gas works.  It had been assumed that this was the works which later became the Phoenix Company's 'West Greenwich' gas works in Thames Street a plan had recently come to light which may indicate that is not so.  It shows an 'old gas works' site on the eastern side of Norway Street - adjacent to the later gas works but not actually part of it and it maybe that this is the Gosling site – perhaps including the land between Norway Street and Deptford Creek to the west. .   As Gosling built the works so he was also trying to sell it. As early as May 1823 the South London Gas Light and Coke Company reported that Phoenix Gas Co. was about to buy the Greenwich Gas Works.

The background to the Phoenix Gas Light and Coke Co. needs some explanation.   A gas works had been set up on Bankside around 1817 by a Mr. Munro. This was one of the earliest London gas works. In due course Mr. Munro seems to have also started the South London Gas Light and Coke Co. Another company, the Phoenix Gas Light and Coke Co., which also included Mr. Munro, had then been formed – but not necessarily from the ashes of the South London since they both existed in parallel for a while – but in due course Phoenix took over South London.  By the early 1820s Phoenix had two gas works – one on Bankside, and another in the back streets of the Blackfriars area.  They were very looking to expand in all directions and as speculative gas works were built by the Hedleys and Goslings of this world, so Phoenix considered purchasing them. 

Phoenix was described in a company history written in the 1920s as having 'a philanthropic, if not a Whiggish tinge'. This comment derives from the nature of some of the early subscribers to the company several of who were well-known Quakers and philanthropists.  Someone who was certainly involved from Greenwich was Charles Pearson, the copperas manufacturer who was a personal friend of Mr. Munro and his sister records in her diary how they dined together in Nelson Square, Blackfriars and how Charles Pearson had to help Munro with problems about an accident at the gas works.  Pearson was also a close friend of Mr.Tilson, the Phoenix Company's solicitor.  

Mr. Gosling continued to build his gas works in Greenwich but both he and his son made overtures to Phoenix.  Initially there were enquiries about pricing policy – perhaps with a view to coming to a joint agreement on charges but by the end of 1824 Gosling was publicly in negotiation with Phoenix for sale of his Greenwich works to them.  He said he would sell at cost and take a percentage of future gas sales. An assessment of the works was to be carried out by Mr. Mackintosh, a member of David Mackintosh's contracting firm, which was heavily involved in major construction works around the area at that time. Within a month second arbitration on the site was arranged this time with William Anderson of the Grand Junction Waterworks.

By the end of December some sort of agreement had been reached to sell the works to Phoenix and Phoenix recorded Gosling's demand to be paid extra money to cover his son's salary and for the expenses of the Parliamentary bill for the Ravensbourne Gas Company – which had now been dropped.   He told them he would pay their solicitors expenses in investigating his title the land on which the works was built – but they must agree to buy whatever the result of those enquiries.  The indignant members of the Greenwich public who were having to pay for all this noted that the same solicitor acted for both Gosling and the Phoenix in this sale – and it must be presumed that this was the respectable Mr.Tilson.  The sale was finally placed in his hands, the solicitor for the other parties being Greenwich's ex-vestry clerk, Bicknell, who had resigned as the details of his dealings with Hedley and Gosling had emerged.

Things dragged on and a year later had still not been completely resolved. Gosling asked Phoenix for the loan of 16 lampposts and requested that his foreman be sent to Canterbury where the same process of selling the vestry a gasworks was, no doubt, underway. In the meantime Greenwich Vestry negotiated separately with the Phoenix Company for a supply of gas lights and Phoenix was able to tell them that they had finally completed purchase of Gosling's works by November 1825.  It cost them £13,302. 7.4d.

Phoenix were also in negotiation with Mr. Hedley – the aggrieved party who had not been allowed to submit his tender to build a gas works in Greenwich. He had now abandoned his efforts in Greenwich, and was now approaching Phoenix on the subject of a take-over of a gas works recently built in Woolwich.  This too was a saga which run and run – and illustrates again how a group of contractors were moving into every community they could find which might have the need and money for a gas lighting supply.

The South London Gas Company had already noted that Phoenix intended to buy some land in Greenwich and, indeed, as negotiations with Mr. Gosling proceeded Phoenix were building a Greenwich Gas Works of their own.  It is quite possible that some people still remember this gas works in Greenwich – although it closed down for gas making during the period of the First World War. It was at the end of Thames Street and occupied the site where Deptford Creek enters the Thames.  It was alongside and adjacent to the Gosling works.  Phoenix had bought land in Greenwich from a Mr. Horrocks but first they needed to stabilise the land at the creek entrance and to build wharves there. This project was undertaken by David Mackintosh and was to take some time. Large amounts of material were brought to the site to build the Creek entrance up.  Meanwhile Phoenix intended to honour their contracts to provide street lights in Greenwich by using Goslings new gas works in Norway Street.

The trouble is that something was falling down.   It is a shame that the Phoenix minute books are not entirely clear which one, and which bit of the new gas, was the one with all the trouble. W.F.D.Garton, who wrote about this site in the 1950s thought it was the new Phoenix works but he does not seem to have been aware that there were probably two sites and, as we will see, Gosling works was abandoned for gas making quite quickly – so perhaps it was that one which fell down!

The Phoenix engineer reported that.. 'The Retort House at Greenwich is settling again'.  This was certainly on the new works site. It had originally been estimated to cost £4,400 and to carry the brickwork down 22 ft because of the nature of the sub soil.  'The Tank has given way for the third time'  - meant that a tank of one of three planned gasholders had not held in the marshy soil and this meant that 'we have had to employ 150 men to renew the timber, and water has seeped through to Mr. Hartley's premises'.    They also reported that 'the foundations were dangerous…. The sand had not been puddled first in the contract' – and this probably refers to the Gosling works. 

We take the wharves and banks of the rivers that we see very much for granted and yet these were often built in relatively recent times.   There was constant struggle to turn something that probably once looked like the creeks around Sittingbourne and Faversham into a reliable industrial site.  Recently development on these two sites on Deptford Creek have meant that contractors and archaeologists have made a special study of the ground conditions there – and one day, perhaps, their results will be available to historians of the area.

The Gosling works was finally closed by Phoenix it in 1828 when their new works was finally ready.  Gas had been made at the Gosling works for about four years, it had caused a major rift in the Greenwich vestry and given Phoenix a lot of problems. However, Phoenix hung on to the site for many years and a gasholder built there by Gosling probably remained in use.  The site, minus the gas holder area, was advertised as a 'valuable property near the river, with brick buildings and a lofty chimney, suitable for an iron foundry or any trade needing large premises'.

What became known as the 'old works' was subsequently let to a Mr. Harrington at £100 a year?  Two years later it was under offer to Mr. Beneke – he was a German chemist who had come to England to open a chemical works connected with the Deptford copperas industry.    He paid £150 a year and got a right of way through the gas holder yard.  Three years later it was to let again.  In 1841 it was let to William Joyce the steam engine builder who must be presumed to have bought it from them since no more records which refer to it have been traced.

In the absence of a map, which shows its exact boundaries, it is not clear exactly which area it covered. It is known however that in the 1840s Gosling's gasholders were repaired and brought into active use by Phoenix.  It is just possible that a gasholder pit which survived at West Greenwich into the 1990s was on the site of a Gosling holder.  It remained in use as a handy pit where aggregate was stored and has only gone during recent developments. 

Phoenix Gas Light and Coke Company flourished and continued to supply Greenwich with gas for lighting from their new works built on the east bank of Deptford Creek.  Things were far from easy and there were many projects for new works over the coming years.