3-047-126 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Effects of the gas strike in London, 1872. 'Perhaps it's the meter; a rush on candles; in the boxes; at the hatters; the railway station; to the stalls; at the drapers; the friendly bullseye; a fine opportunity; groping along...Last week, the stokers of the Chartered Gas Company, at Beckton, North Woolwich, turned out without the slightest notice, their avowed object being to enforce the reinstatement of the "union" man who had been discharged from the works of the Imperial Gas Company at Fulham...At the works of the Independent Gas-Light Company, Kingsland-road, also, the stokers struck work, without previous notice, the only reason assigned being that they had orders to do so by the delegates of the Stokers' Union...The several gas companies...reduced the amount of supply to their customers, and to the street lamps. This occasioned some temporary inconvenience...St. James's Theatre was closed; and naphtha lamps were used on the Metropolitan and District Railway...There was a run upon the chandler's and oilmen's shops by many of the householders, and shopkeepers, who had been led to expect that they would be entirely deprived of gas at night, and that they must furnish themselves with other means of lighting up their premises'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.