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INTRODUCTION
Some idea of the magnitude of the gas industry in this country may be gathered from the faet that at the present time there exist in the United Kingdom upwards of 1,600 separate concerns promoted for the manufacture and distribution of towns’ gas, with a capacity ranging from a quarter of a million to 32,000,000,000 cubic feet per annum. Of tliese undertakings 831 are operated under statutory powers, 519 being owned by Companies and 312 by local authorities. The Capital employed by the statutory concerns is approximately £140,000,000. The total annual pro-duction of gas in the United Kingdom is 250,000,000.000 cubic feet, which is dis-tributed to some 7,000,000 individual consumers (4J million of whom are supplied on the slot-meter system) through 40,000 miles of Street mains.
As an essential factor in the prosecution of modem warfare the role of the gasworks is already well known, but in honour to an industry which played no mean a part in securing victory in the great European War (1914-1918) some few details of its activities during that distressful period must be put on record. The urgent demand for the principal ingredients employed in the manufacture of modem explosives was met with. an immediate response from the gasworks, which—in many cases with nothing more than hastily improvised apparatus—provided the country in the space of two years with thirty million gallons of pure benzene and toluene, or sufficient to make a million and a quarter tons of “ Lyddite ” and 65,000 tons of T.N.T. In addition, large quantities of special concentrated ammonia, a product practically uncalled for in times of peace, were produced ; while it was to the gas industry that the call went out for sulphuric acid, fuel-oil for the Navy, phenol, and even the charcoal product employed in the manufacture of protective gas-masks. The achievement, in faet, was one worthy of the appreciation of the country as a whole, and should serve as an inspiring record upon which present and future generations of gas engineers may look back with pride.