Gas Company Marks Its Centennial

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 14

Gas Company Marks Its Centennial

The Christchurch Gas, Coal and Coke Company, Ltd., officially celebrated its centennial yesterday with'the onehundredth annual meeting of shareholders. The company came into being because of a desire to provide the town of 1862 with better lighting, and late in 1862 a prospectus was issued, the share capital being £lO,OOO divided into 1000 shares of £lO each. The original directors had difficulty in getting this amount subscribed, but the company was registered on May 14, 1863, and the first meeting of directors was held on May 19.

The first directors were Messrs J. M. Heywood (chairman), H. E. Alport, G. Gould, R. J. Harman, E. F. Harston, I. Luck, G. Miles, J. Ollivier and C. W. Turner.

From its inception the company has had a member of the Gould family on the board, the present representative being Mr D. W. J. Gould.

The company bought a site of one acre where the works stand today, and in 1864 the first gas was distributed.

The capacity of the first gasholders was 10,000 cubic feet, and when the first gas was produced there were only two or three miles of mains. Street Works

In 1870 an act was passed giving the company authority to break up streets and bridges necessary for pipes and other works involved in the supply of gas. By 1880 the output had risen to 40 million cubic feet supplied through 35 miles of mains to more than 1400 consumers, and the gasometers had storage of 450,000 cubic feet. The City Council’s kerosene street lamps had given way to gas lights, and by 1907 there were more than 1000 of these.

The gas industry expanded rapidly in the early years of this century. More land was bought in Moorhouse avenue and in 1901 a fourth gasholder was built to increase storage to one million cubic feet.

In the same year land was bought at the corner of Worcester street and Oxford terrace and in the following year the offices still occupied by the company were built. The company entered the field of refined residuals with the erection of an ammonia plant in 1906. In the same year plant and land at Spring-

field were bought and firebrick manufacture commenced. This continued for 12 years.

Electric lighting began to take over. In 1913 there were 1335 gas street lights burning more than 13 million cubic feet a year, but within a year the gas lighting began to decline, and by 1915 only 208 street lamps remained, and these ceased to burn on April 1, 1918.

Domestic lighting was slower to decline, but by 1926 all hopes of retaining the lighting load had been abandoned.

But the annual output continued to grow, reaching 500 million feet in 1929. By-Products

Meanwhile the development of, tar oil derivatives had begun and over the years an increasing variety of products had been marketed.

Plant maintenance fell badly into arrears during the depression and the Second World War, and in the 1940’s the company began to design and build its own plant to cope with a rapid growth in load. In 1956 the new carbonisation plant came into operation.

Three years later the annual output reached 862 million feet, peak days approaching four million cubic feet. Further storage was imperative and last year a new Christchurch landmark, the 2.5 million cubic feet holder, the biggest in New Zealand, was brought into use.

Today, while the number of consumers has dropped from the highest of 24,418 in 1933 to 15,937, the output is still climbing at 983,834,000 cubic feet (twice as high as 30 years ago).