SLIDE 1 Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
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Time-lapse transformation of an industrial skyline. Construction of a gasholder at the Cambridge University & Town Gas-Light Company in the 1920s
Preface Cambridge is renowned as: an ancient university town, an even older market town and a modern centre
Cambridge’s industrial history tends to be less well known, since much of the physical evidence disappeared from the city’s landscape and skyline during the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Slide 1 captures the “industrial quarter” of east Cambridge in the 1930s, which at that time comprised:
- a sewage-pumping station (now Cambridge Museum of Technology)
- brick-kilns
- quarries:
The purpose of Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Society is to study and record the industrial history and artefacts of the area. The society is hosted at Cambridge Museum of Technology, which enables people to explore, enjoy and learn about Cambridge’s industrial heritage. This BALH Ten Minute Talk is an extract from a Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Society lecture, “Town, Gown (and Clergy) in Cambridge’s First Industrial Revolution” presented by Dr. Gordon Davies,
- riginally broadcast on 20 April 2020 as part of Cambridge Museum of Technology’s volunteer-
produced webinar series during lockdown.
SLIDE 2 Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
2 Introduction: Cambridge University & Town Gas-Light Company’s origins in the 19th century A town-gas works had operated at River Lane in east Cambridge since the late 1820s (slide 2): gas- manufacturing had been relocated there by one of the pioneers of commercial gas: John Grafton.1 The company was incorporated in 1834 and from 1867 was known as “The University & Town Gas- Light Company”.2 Nearby wharves, which have been attested as far back the (re)construction of Ely Cathedral’s Octagon in the 14th century,3 supplied raw material (coal) by barge from Kings Lynn (prior to the arrival of the railway in Cambridge). By-products of gas manufacture (such as ammoniacal liquor for farmers in East Anglia) were returned by barge, downstream. The company was spurred to (re)build its operations on several occasions throughout the Victorian era due to:
- population growth, which led to the expansion of street gas-lighting and increased demand for
domestic appliances
- competition in the 1860’s from a rival gas company
- a hurricane (!) in 1870, which blew over a gasholder erected three years’ previously.4
1 Allan Brigham (2004) Grafton & Gas: new technology comes to Cambridge. Cambridgeshire Local History
Review.
2 Cambridge University & Town Gas-Light Company records, Cambridgeshire Archives. 3 L.F. Salzman (1948) The Victoria History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, Vol. II. 4 On the Cambridgeshire “hurricane” of January 1870, Enid Porter (1975) Victorian Cambridge: Josiah Chater’s
Diaries, cites Chater’s diary of 6 February 1870: “We saw the result of the accident to the great gasometer.”
SLIDE 3
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
3 New century: new development in 20th-century industrial Cambridge During the first three decades of the 20th century, a comprehensive redevelopment and expansion of the gas works was overseen by the Engineer and Manager, J.W. Auchterlonie (slide 3).5 Auchterlonie had the foresight to commission regular photographs at the site during this redevelopment: the result is a ”before-and-after” time-lapse sequence of photography (now stored in the National Grid Gas Archive and Cambridgeshire Collection), which provides insight into the early- 20th-century industrial-landscape of Cambridge.6 The most substantial structural addition to the gas works (in over 140 years of continuous operation) was the construction of a 3-million-cubic-feet gas holder, erected between 1925 and 1927. Not only did this gasholder more than double the gas-works' storage capacity, the structure also transformed the River Cam skyline of Cambridge’s industrial quarter (slide 1). Time-lapse photography: How to build a 3-million cubic-feet gasholder Initial site clearance, creation of a raised embankment and laying of foundations for the gasholder began in the summer of 1925 (when seasonal demand for gas was at its lowest). The sewage-pumping station, which adjoined the property boundary of the gas works, is clearly visible in background of the first photograph in the sequence, which was taken from the coke hoppers in the direction of the River Cam to the north-east (slide 4):
5 Gas Journal, October 1927. 6 National Grid Gas Archive: https://extranet.nationalgrid.com/GasArchive/
SLIDE 4
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
4 During the remainder of 1925 and early 1926, workers sunk foundations and laid a crane track around the perimeter (slide 5): The crane inserted concrete plinths vertically to create guide channels for the lift-frame. The location of the new gasholder – in relation to the property boundary of the gas works and the adjacent sewage- pumping station – was a very tight squeeze! Slide 6 juxtaposes the architect’s original site-elevation plan side-by-side with a site photo, to show how each tier of the gas holder had external grips that held each level of the gas lift in place as it expanded with gas:
SLIDE 5
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
5 The three-tier inner lift of the gas holder was known by workers and local residents as the “dumpling” (slide 7): By early 1927, the structure was already starting to dominate the rural riverscape as “king-post” had been added to the top of the lift, enabling the next stage of construction. This photographic sequence freeze-frames construction workers, as well as the developing structure. For example, in slide 8 construction workers had been adding steel trussing to the king post on top of “the dumpling”:
SLIDE 6
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
6 Slide 9 shows the “skeleton” of the structure taking shape, nearly two years after construction work began: Once trussing reinforcement from the king-post was completed, outer sheets were added to create the “crown” of the gasholder. By summer 1927, the truss-work had been completely covered by outer sheets; workers could pump water in to seal the gas. As the guide-frame rose, engineers had to find a solution to stack additional tiers of steel girders (visible at ground level in slide 10) while the lift and crown was already in place:
SLIDE 7
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
7 The next phase of the time-lapse photography illustrates how engineers adopted construction practices in use at contemporary shipyards and skyscrapers to solve this challenge. The perimeter crane raised and maneuvered steel girders into position, where riveters in cages connected them into upper tiers of the outer guide frame (slide 11): A third tier of the guide-frame for the lift-holder was quickly added in June 1927, as the chimney of the sewage-pumping station began to disappear behind the (inflated) lift-frame (slide 12):
SLIDE 8
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
8 Within a month, a fourth tier was under construction (slide 13): This photo (incidentally) captures the absence of vegetation on the (rather barren) Chesterton side of river Cam, which (in the 21st-century) is now a flourishing (human-made) nature reserve. Throughout its history the company had received numerous complaints about pollution.7 For example, fifty years prior to this photography, the town council’s Commissioners of Improvements
7 In 1867 Cambridge Improvements Commissioners informed the company that “effluvia arising from the
manufacture of Gas & residual products of the Gas house River Lane in the Parish of St. Andrew has been reported to be a nuisance & very serious to the public health”. P. Thorsheim (2002) “The Paradox of Smokeless Fuels: Gas, Coke and the Environment in Britain 1813-1949", Environment and History, www.jstor.org/stable/20723251 notes that town gas shifted pollution from the aerial atmosphere of (domestic) consumption to the (ground and water) pollution of the site of production.
SLIDE 9
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
9 considered complaints of “noxious vapours from the gas works”, which claimed to destroy vegetation in the neighbourhood.8 By the autumn of 1927, the guide frame was complete (slide 14): Time-lapse skyline in Cambridge Riverside: architecture and aesthetics The finished gasholder would have been the largest (tallest) steel-framed structure in Cambridge at the time, prior to the tower of the new University Library, which was completed in the early 1930s. As slide 15 illustrates, the guide frames of gasholders were not merely functional, but also aesthetic- architectural structures.9
8 Cambridge University & Town Gas-Light Company minute book, 1876. Cambridgeshire Archives. In response,
the Chairman of the company (who happened to be vice-Chancellor of the University) wrote back to the council: “if it is imagined the production of gas can be conducted to yield nothing but pleasant odours, then the complainants are very much mistaken. And what about the brick kilns, manure works and most offensive of all the candle works right in the middle of town?”
9 Historic England (2019) Gas Works and Redundant Holders,
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/gasworks-and-redundant-gasholders/
SLIDE 10 Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
10 The shiny metal rotunda would have acted as a reflective “lighthouse” on the River Cam. On a sunny day the sun would create dynamic shadow patterns across the Haling Way (Riverside) throughout the day, casting shadows onto the road during the morning and afternoon, then beaming back off the rotunda onto the river-facing side at sunset. Physical transformation: social change The physical transformation at the gas works in the early decades of the 20th century also coincided with major social and political change (slide 16): In the 1900s:
- the company established a co-operative scheme, in which workers purchased shares in the
limited company.10
10 Journal of Gas Lighting, Water Supply, August 1910.
SLIDE 11 Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
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- the company constructed amenities, such as gardens, tennis courts, quoits pitch, greenhouse
(and a rifle range!),11 indicating that the company had absorbed lessons from ”garden cities” movement (such as nearby Letchworth).12 In the 1910s-1920s:
- During the First World War (1914-1918), females replaced men (who had joined the military) as
manual labourers, sorting and loading coal: a dirty and dusty process in which the workers wore
- verall coats on top of trousers and used shovels to sort the size of the coal.13
- Construction of a war memorial (unveiled in 1921), with the inscription: ‘THE EMPLOYERS AND
EMPLOYED / OF THE CAMBRIDGE GAS COMPANY / ERECTED THIS MONUMENT IN / REMEMBRANCE OF THEIR COMRADES’.14 Archive sources (reproduced with permission)
www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/libraries-leisure-culture/archives
- Cambridgeshire Collection:
www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/libraries-leisure-culture/local-studies/cambridgeshire-collection
- Cambridge Museum of Technology visitor-display panels:
www.museumoftechnology.com/visit
- National Grid Gas Archive:
https://extranet.nationalgrid.com/GasArchive
Acknowledgements
- Staff and volunteers of Cambridge Museum of Technology
- Kerry Moores (Information Records Operations Manager at National Grid Gas Archive)
- Digital-image restoration by David Stubbings
(Chairman, Chesterton Local History Group) About the author:
- Dr. Gordon Davies has lived on the redeveloped site of the former Cambridge University & Town
gasworks since 2006. Gordon studied Mediterranean history and archaeology; he has worked in the technology industry for a quarter of a century, hence his interest in the history of technology!
11 J.W. Auchterlonie (1927) “Alterations at the Cambridge gas-works, 1910-1927", Gas Journal, October 1927. 12 Ebenezer Howard (1902) Garden Cities of To-morrow. 13 Cambridge Museum of Technology visitor panel, www.museumoftechnology.com/visit 14 HistoryWorks CreatingMyCambridge,
www.creatingmycambridge.com/songs-creative/resources/local-history-topics/cambridge-gas-works/
SLIDE 12
Constructing a gasholder in 1920’s Cambridge
12 Contact: gordon.davies@museumoftechnology.com www.museumoftechnology.com
