David Howard kindly lent me this photograph of Andover gasworks, taken in 1911. The various chimneys, buildings and the dominant gas holder have long gone, as has the footprint of the road running beside the site, all currently replaced by Asda’s car park.

Andover’s gas works dates from 1838, the impetus coming from the passing of two Acts in 1830 and 1833 that allowed parishes to decide on lighting their streets with lamps. As elsewhere, it was the borough council who became the driving force, as lighting the streets was so obviously in the interests of the town.

Things were done differently in those days and it is noticeable that most of the shareholders in the new (private) company were also members of the council or closely associated with it, so whether the residents wanted gas-lit streets or not, the council went ahead in setting up a company to supply and sell gas to themselves as representatives of the borough electors from which they could personally make a profit as shareholders. Not least to benefit was Henry Thompson, who was to be thrice mayor of Andover and a local coal merchant who successfully tendered to supply the new gas company with its vital raw material.

Large quantities of coal were needed to make the manufactured coal gas that the company supplied. After heating the raw material to 500 degrees centigrade, the released gas went through a number of processes to remove the inherent impurities before final storage in the on-site gas holder.

At the beginning, there were 75 street lamps but these were lit only between October and March and there was the peculiarity that they were not lit three days either side of a full moon - unless there was no moon. Lighting the lamps was the job of the lamplighters who had to go from lamp to lamp, turn on the gas and light up each evening and return to dowse them at the appointed time.

In 1857 the Guildhall was lit by gas at a cost of £60 but occasionally, the cold weather caused the meter to freeze up and then the candles had to come out. The grammar school, then in New Street, had to wait until 1888 for gas lighting which was when the large extension was built.

However, there were inherent dangers: in 1895, an explosion outside Pond’s in the upper High Street broke up the pavement when the cold weather fractured the main and too much gas was pumped into the system to counter the intermittent supply.

By 1900, electricity was becoming a mainstream energy and in 1905, the company was re-named the Andover Lighting and Power Company, with an office at 13 Bridge Street. The new company applied to Parliament for the licence to supply both gas and electrical energy, in order to stave off any potential competitors but though outwardly willing to build a power station, the company avoided doing so and it was not until 1926 that electricity finally came to Andover, much later than comparable towns.

In April 1949 gas became a nationalised industry. All the current stockholders were compensated and the gas works became part of the Southern Gas Board. Production continued at Andover until 1958 after which Andover’s gas was supplied from Southampton.

(I am indebted to the late Andrew Jackson for his research on the Andover Utility Companies from which this article is drawn).

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