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by Peter Lee
I remember as a lad in the 50's the gas works which used to stand in Queens Road. Its pungent aroma mixed with the various other smells which permeated the town at that time was, according to old wive's tales, said to be, taken in sufficient lung fulls, good for catarrh and other bronchial problems. All I know is how much sweeter our local atmosphere became after it was swept away. I also have vague recollections once of having gone there with a friend who pushed a rather derelict and filthy old pram in order to collect a load of coke for his mam! I was reserve horse power to shove the creaking load up the street on the way home. What a pair of deprivates we must have looked.
You might wonder, why build a gas works in the middle of town, but the answer was simple, when the works was first built it was not in the centre of town at all. It was on the outskirts. In October 1835 it was first reported that a gas, light and coke company was projected simply for lighting a few gas lamps in Nuneaton town centre. It had a share capital of £2,500 in £10 shares which were quickly snapped up by the public. Its location in fields at the back of Nuneaton's main street, Abbey Street, was chosen carefully because pipelines had to be laid and it was strategically situated for these to reach where required in the town centre. Early in 1836 extensive works were carried out to alter some of the water courses in the town centre, part of this work was to make way for the new gas works. The Wash Brook ran by the site of the current Nags Head pub which was one hundred and sixty five years ago open fields. It flowed into a pool adjacent to what is now Pool Bank Street before the stream emerged and ran twenty or thirty yards away from and parallel to today's Queens Road before diving through a bridge near today's W.H.Smith's shop and down to the Anker. The new works involved diverting this stream from its middle course in the fields to the side of the road whilst another stream which commenced somewhere up Stockingford ran down the opposite side before it too entered the Wash Brook near the bridge in what is now Queens Road but was then Wash Lane.
On 25th May 1836 the contract to build the new gas works was let to Mr. Charles Ball, one of Nuneaton's biggest building contractors at the time, for the princely sum of £556. A first brick laying ceremony took place on 9th June 1836 and by September that year the first gas pipes were laid with 80 street lamps planned throughout the town.
By December that year the original enthusiasm had wained a bit with shares changing hands at £1 less than their original value.
Not deterred gas was first piped into Nuneaton on 2nd January 1837 which speaks well of the speed of construction carried out by Mr. Ball all those years ago. There was a great deal of celebration as church bells were rung and musicians played through the streets to make this great step forward. Even a few meagre gas mantles were better than the complete lack of street lighting which had hitherto been the situation. When no decent citizen dared walk through the dark, dank and blackened streets at night.
By 1849 The inspector to the Board of Health reported that the management appears to be very inefficient, great disputes arose, and the affairs had become "unprosperous" leaving the town unlit "and not fit for a woman to walk around". He also reported that the price of gas was absurdly high at 10-12 shillings per 1000 (cu.ft.?)
In 1850 the lessees of the works were: Clay, Green and Thorpe with William Golby as general manager. The Clay connection was Joseph Hood Clay who had an ironmongery business in Abbey Street so in order to complete his commercial involvement no doubt did a good trade in gas pipes, burners and mantles, as well as other sundry fittings required in piping gas to local inhabitants. By 1866 Henry Clews was manager. In 1874 the company was trading as the Nuneaton Gas Light and Coke Company Ltd. and was leased to Robinson Brothers of Coventry. The works consisted of three gas holders capable of containing 80,000 feet of gas, and there were 29 retorts. The whole town then had 100 public lamps. In 1880 the offices of the company had transferred to Bridge Street in the middle of town.
During this period the road we now know as Queens Road changed its name from Wash Lane, to Arbury Lane, to Gas Lane, then Gas Street before part becoming Queen's Street and then finally Queen's Road. The gas works added to the property it owned by small acquisitions of adjacent land from 1883 onwards including a substantial addition made in 1899.
For forty eight years the gas works was associated with a prominent local dignatory Mr. George Helps (1864-1952). The Helps family had long been involved in the gas trade almost from the beginning of its origins in the early 1800's. George Helps father also George was born in 1826 and served the Bath Gas Company until the ripe old age of 76 where he had been company secretary for 46 years.
George Helps Jnr.'s brother James was a gas engineer with the Croydon Gas Co. and another brother, Douglas was engineer and manager to the Redhill Gas Co.
George Helps was educated at Christ's Hospital and one of his first jobs was as a journalist for the Bath Herald newspaper. He then joined his father at the Bath Gas Co. Later he moved to become assistant engineer and accountant to the Bahia Gas Co. South America before becoming engineer and manager to the Hinckley Gas Works in 1894. In 1898 took over the Nuneaton enterprise.
During his time at Nuneaton he was the inventor of the Multiple Mantle Burner and in 1932 he pioneered the "all gas home" which dispensed with the traditional coal fire. In 1946 he retired to live in his beloved West Country, to Burnham on Sea. His son also named George took over the business, remaining as manager after the gas industry was nationalised in 1949.
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