The new method of lighting speedily became popular amongst
manufacturers, from its superior safety, cheapness, and
illuminating power. The mills of Phillips and Lee of Manchester
were fitted up in 1805; and those of Burley and Kennedy, also of
Manchester, and of Messrs. Gott, of Leeds, in subsequent years.
Though Murdock had made the uses of gas-lighting perfectly clear,
it was some time before it was proposed to light the streets by
the new method. The idea was ridiculed by Sir Humphry Davy, who
asked one of the projectors if he intended to take the dome of
St. Paul's for a gasometer! Sir Waiter Scott made many clever
jokes about those who proposed to "send light through the streets
in pipes;" and even Wollaston, a well known man of science,
declared that they "might as well attempt to light London with a
slice from the moon." It has been so with all new projects--
with the steamboat, the locomotive, and the electric telegraph.
As John Wilkinson said of the first vessel of iron which he
introduced, "it will be only a nine days' wonder, and afterwards
a Columbus's egg."
On the 25th of February, 1808, Murdock read a paper before the
Royal Society "On the Application of Gas from Coal to economical
purposes." He gave a history of the origin and progress of his
experiments, down to the time when he had satisfactorily lit up
the premises of Phillips and Lee at Manchester.
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