![]() Lamplighters, in contrast, were paid better and were praised for their work illuminating darkened streets and allowing people to feel safer. Because the job often involved children clambering up and down sooty chimneys, Victorian labor reformers viewed it with horror. ![]() In 19th-century England, lamplighters had a far better reputation than “Dusty Bobs,” the term used for chimney sweeps like Bert.Ĭhimney sweeping was a desperately poor trade. With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street. It’s time to take the window to see the Leerie going by įor every night at teatime and before you take your seat Stevenson popularized the Scottish term for lamplighters – “leerie” – in his 1885 poem, “ The Lamplighter”: My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky Charles Dickens’ first comedy, “ The Lamplighter,” debuted in 1838. The lamplighter soon entered popular culture. Gas lamps could be temperamental, so lamplighters also needed to clean and mend the lantern glass, which could crack and attracted dust and soot.Ī team of British lamplighters pose with their poles c. Teams of lamplighters would meander through the city streets, using long poles to spark the gas. Every evening, each lamp needed to be manually sparked each morning, the flame needed to be manually quenched. More lamps, however, created a need for more labor. Over the following decades, thousands of gas lamps went up across London and in cities around the world. As part of King George III’s birthday celebration, London’s Pall Mall became the first place lit by a gaslight in 1807. The first gas lighting systems were installed in 1802 in a foundry in Birmingham, England’s 18th-century version of America’s Silicon Valley. The Victorian periodical The Westminster Review wrote that the introduction of gas lamps would do more to eliminate immorality and criminality on the streets than any number of church sermons. The light is beautifully white and brilliant.” London’s Monthly Magazine reported: “One branch of the lamps illuminated with gas affords a greater intensity of light than 20 common lamps lighted with oil. The result was a lamp that burned much brighter than its predecessors. ![]() The first gas pipes were made from the barrels of old musket guns, and the lamp casings were coated in lime-oxide, which glow white-hot in a gas flame. “Standing directly underneath one,” a contemporary griped, “one might as well be in the dark.”Īs the historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch explains in his book “ Disenchanted Night,” gas ushered in a new era of street lighting technology. Compared to today’s lighting, they barely emitted a flicker. These lamps were hailed as artificial suns – a new technology that could turn night into day.īut it still wasn’t good enough. Using several wicks and silver-plated copper reflectors, these lamps could cast light down and sideways, strengthening the glow. ![]() The reflector lamp, invented in Paris in 1760, became a popular update to existing oil lamps. First installed in the 18th century, the earliest public street lamps used fish oil and wicks. ![]()
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