NEW PLANT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 11

NEW PLANT

PETONE GAS WORKS

OPENING CEREMONY

Representatives of gas companies and boards and commercial interests were present this morning, when the Hon. W. Nash officially opened the new chamber oven carbonising plant erected at Petone for the Petone and Lower Hutt Gas Lighting Board.

The chairman of the board (Mr. J. Cumming) presided, and also present were the ex-chairman (Mr. W. G. Lodder) and past and present members of the board, the Mayor of Petone (Mr. G. London), the Mayor of Upper Hutt (Mr. P. Robertson), the chairman of the Taita Cemetery Board (Mr. F. S. Hewer), the chairman of the Hutt Park Committee (Mr. W. F. Hornig), members of the Petone and Lower Hutt Borough Councils, Mr. J, Roberts (president of the New Zealand Labour Party), Mr. R. E. Harding (solicitor to the Gas Board), Mr. M. J. Kennedy (general manager) and Mr. J. Hungerford (engineer) of the Wellington Gas Company, and Messrs. J. Learmonth (Palmerston North), J. J. Kennerley (Levin), J. Dunckley (Blenheim), J. Douglas (Masterton), Bennett (representing the gas committee of the Wanganui City Council) and W. J. Stone (Wanganui engineer), J. Cable, J. Ludbrook, R. Cameron, J. Halliwell, M. J. Daniel, S. T. Silver, A. J., White, and Young.

Mr. Cumming said that although the works had been open for some time, many thought they should have been completed earlier. However, this was not the fault of the board or the company constructing the works, as certain materials were held up. This plant was the third of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, the other two being in Melbourne and Townsville. The plant at Devonport (Auckland) was somewhat similar. The board was going to use 100 per cent. New Zealand coal and hoped.to get 20,000 or 21,000 cubic feet of gas to the ton. EARLY DIFFICULTIES. Mr. Nash said that the average person, or an engineer for that matter, knew little about the difficulties of the industry in its early stages. The earliest observation and demonstration of coal gas as an illuminant had been j ascribed to John Clayton and- Jean | Pierre Minckelers, but the first prac-! tical application on any considerable j scale seems to have been ' made by William Murdoch, who ran a small experimental plant in 1795 and lighted a Soho factory by gas a few years later.

The first recorded demonstration of gas in the United States was in Philadelphia in 1796. Baltimore, howevei*, was the first city to use gas commercially. Introduction of gas lighting was not rapid. Many people regarded this change from the common methods of lighting with fear. Both in London and in the United States many objections were made.

Gas was first used for street lighting, and later public buildings were lighted in this way. A few wealthy citizens also used gas #o light their homes, but it was not until 1865 or 1875 that the use of gas for home lighting began to make much progress.

The first authentic recorded use of gas for domestic purposes was about 1830 or 1832, when James Sharp, at Northampton, England, demonstrated the availability of gas for cooking in his home. It was not until 1859 that gas began to be used widely for cooking in the United States. INTRODUCTION OF ELECTRICITY. When electricity was introduced, said Mr. Nash, it appeared as tf gas would go out of existence as a 'commercial proposition, but now, fifty years after the invention of electric light, gas had established a record for itself as a fuel. In the United States, the manufactured gas industry had not reported a decrease in annual sales or gross revenue in the last 21 years. Gas was probably the best example j of private enterprise. In 1928 the Lon-j don Gas Light and Coke Company had i an issued capital of £35,000,000 and em-1 ployed 20,000 men, whose interest in the company under its co-partnership scheme was £738,000. The Petone and Lower Hutt Gas Lighting Board had passed through various difficulties, Mr, Nash said. At one stage it looked as if the Wellington Gas Company would take over tlie supply of gas to the Hutt Valley, but now the board was well on its feet with the most modern plant in New Zealand. The board owed much to Mr. W. G. Lodder for his services and single-hearted work over many years. Mr. A. Scholefield was another keen worker, and it was unfortunate he 4 was still in hospital.

Mr. Nash concluded by commending the board on its decision to use New Zealand coaly most of which was State coal.

Mr. Nash performed the opening ceremony by pulling a lever which discharged coke into a truck.

After an inspection was made of the plant, morning tea was served and various toasts were honoured.