Candle Making & Gas Works

Candlemaking was another enterprise that flourished in the village – at least for a little while. It was carried on for some time by Mr James Connel of Calderhaugh a forebear of Robert and Ian who feature in the Joinery article. They were made from tallow and the stink from manufacture was terrible. Beeswax burned brighter and was not offensive to the nose but was very expensive. This business was discontinued around 1828. I remember my Dad telling me that the Candlemaking business was quite extensive but I’ve not found any supporting evidence to that effect. Towns gas was invented by a Scottish engineer (William Murdoch) in 1792 while living in Cornwall. This led to gas lighting which spread throughout the country. This may have been what led to the demise of the Candlemaking business or perhaps its demise was due to neighbours complaining about the smell. Interestingly, the memory of the smell may still have been fresh in the noses of Lochwinnians because in the 1897 Feu Contract between Joseph Johnstone and Hugh Crawford he is specifically barred from making candles or glue or anything else considered a nuisance.

Mentioning gas lighting takes me nicely on to towns gas. Before the discovery of North Sea gas which is a naturally occurring fuel, primarily methane, towns gas was used. Towns gas was manufactured from coal by a process known as gasification. Coal was heated in an oxygen free atmosphere so it did not burn however gases are given off which once cleaned could be distributed to provide heating and lighting. The residue known as coke could be used to fuel the furnaces that gasified the coal. The combustible gas is mostly carbon monoxide and hydrogen, but it contains many impurities such as hydrogen sulfide as well as ammonia. In order for this gas to be usable, it must be cleaned. To "clean" this gas, it is bubbled through water, removing the ammonia and any residual oils or tars in the gas. Hydrogen sulfide is removed by passing the gas over iron oxide. The gas can then undergo one more final "scrubbing" process to remove any aromatics, such as benzene from it. Some “impurities” became useful products in their own right, eg ammonia and its use in the bleaching process discussed in the textile section.

The gas got its name because there was no national gas distribution system as there is today so every town had to have its own gas works. Lochwinnoch was no different. The 1895 map below shows that our gas works was located adjacent to the site of the Viewfield Chair and Cabinet Works.

The photograph below probably represents the entire workforce of the gas plant.

I came across the article below dated 6th July 1901 announcing a new manager for the plant. The chap second left with the tie looks like he could be the site manager. I wonder if he is Mr Brown or Mr Davies, perhaps neither. In Gorman McGee's article he mentions Mr McGillivary and Mr Blair as two of the employee's in 1930's/40's.

The photograph below is a receipt from the company dated 1882.

I don’t have a date for when the gas works was established. It pre-dates the furniture works because it is present in a map dated 1856. Given towns gas was only discovered a few years earlier and it arrived in Lochwinnoch prior to 1856 it spread rapidly throughout the country.

In December 1965 the first British discovery of gas was made in the southern North Sea by the BP jack-up drilling rig Sea Gem. The excitement was overshadowed days later when on Boxing Day the rig capsized with the loss of thirteen lives. And so began the conversion of millions of appliances throughout the UK to burn North Sea gas, a process that took till the late 1970’s to complete. As part of the current Government’s efforts to tackle climate change it is trialing the combustion of hydrogen as a replacement for methane. Hydrogen’s combustion product is simply water as it contains no carbon being pure hydrogen!!!! Two of the trials have been abandoned due to local resistance. If hydrogen does become accepted it is another case of history repeating itself as a major component of Town’s Gas was hydrogen.