Henry Brougham, who was the counsel for
the petitioners, made great fun of Winsor's absurd
speculations,[10] and the Bill was thrown out.
In the following year the London and Westminster Chartered Gas
Light and Coke Company succeeded in obtaining their Act. They
were not very successful at first. Many prejudices existed
against the employment of the new light. It was popularly
supposed that the gas was carried along the pipes on fire, and
that the pipes must necessarily be intensely hot. When it was
proposed to light the House of Commons with gas, the architect
insisted on the pipes being placed several inches from the walls,
for fear of fire; and, after the pipes had been fixed, the
members might be seen applying their gloved hands to them to
ascertain their temperature, and afterwards expressing the
greatest surprise on finding that they were as cool as the
adjoining walls.
The Gas Company was on the point of dissolution when Mr. Samuel
Clegg came to their aid. Clegg had been a pupil of Murdock's, at
Soho. He knew all the arrangements which Murdock had invented.
He had assisted in fitting up the gas machinery at the mills of
Phillips & Lee, Manchester, as well as at Lodge's Mill, Sowerby
Bridge, near Halifax. He was afterwards employed to fix the
apparatus at the Catholic College of Stoneyhurst, in Lancashire,
at the manufactory of Mr.
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