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The story
The company was founded by Frederick Albert Winsor, who was originally from Germany. Authorisation was given by Parliament in the Gas Light and Coke Company Act 1810 (50 Geo. 3. c. clxiii), and the company was incorporated by royal charter on 30 April 1812 under the seal of King George III. It was the first company set up to supply London with (coal) gas, and operated the first gas works in the United Kingdom which was also the world's first public gas works. It was governed by a "Court of Directors", which met for the first time on 24 June 1812. The original capitalisation was £1 million (about £70 million at 2018 prices), in 80,000 shares.
Offices were established at Pall Mall, with a wharf at Cannon Row. In 1818 the company established a tar works in Poplar and expanded their works at Brick Lane and Westminster. Under the company's chief engineer, Samuel Clegg (formerly of Boulton and Watt), a gas works was installed at the Royal Mint in 1817 and by 1819 nearly 290 miles of pipes had been laid in London, supplying 51,000 burners. Clegg also developed a practical gas meter.
In 1824, it purchased the Sandford Manor House estate in Fulham and the following year built its first gas holder close by the following year with a second added soon afterwards in what became the Gas Works at Sands Lane, covering twenty-eight acres.
Constituent companies
The company absorbed numerous smaller companies, including:
With the advent of electricity, the company expanded into domestic services, with "lady demonstrators" employed to promote gas cooking. This home service eventually developed into a full advisory service on domestic gas use.
In 1948 the GLCC supplied an area of 547 square miles from Egham in Surrey, Pinner in North West London to Southend-on-Sea in Essex. It supplied a population of 4.5 million, and in 1948 had 21,250 employees and sold 276.7 million Therms (approximately 8 terawatt-hours or 29 petajoules) of gas. On 1 May 1949 the GLCC was nationalised under the Gas Act 1948 and became the major part of the new North Thames Gas Board, one of Britain's twelve regional area gas boards.
The GLCC's service valve covers can still be seen on the streets of London, dating from the period of its operation.
From Wikipedia’s article on Gas Light and Coke Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3