News

News feeds |

Illuminating changes

One thing which we all take for granted these days is adequate street lighting.

Yet, not surprisingly, in the long history of Newark's growth and development, the introduction of this most necessary of public services is a relatively new phenomenon.

Before the widespread introduction of piped gas supplies, for instance, only sporadic attempts to light the town were made relying necessarily on the far inferior system of oil lamps.

Although undoubtedly making some impression on the almost total darkness which had previously reigned, these lamps actually provided very little illumination and the problem which they had been set up to alleviate - crime - continued almost unabated.

The dark narrow streets and alleyways of Newark proved a magnet for criminal activity in the early years of the 19th Century and the pages of the town's then newspaper, The Nottingham and Newark Mercury, are littered with incidents attributable to the unlit state of the streets. One particularly nasty saga from August 1831 concerned an on-going (and unexplained) vendetta waged against the local confectioner, Mr Eggleston.

At one point the paper reports that: "On his house there was chalked in large letters a caution to Mr Eggleston to beware of dark nights as they meant to Burke him" - a reference to the notorious William Burke, who, together with William Hare, had latterly been executed for murdering innocent travellers in Edinburgh and selling their bodies for medical research.

It was a result of concern over incidents such as these some years earlier that had led to the first moves to introduce street lighting in Newark.

In was in November 1791 that suggestions for lighting the town were first put forward when a group of the town's most influential citizens met in the parish church to discuss how the scheme might be carried through.

As mentioned above, the only technology then available was oil lamps and once the number of lights required around the town had been determined, it was resolved to open up a public subscription to collect the £150 necessary to see the project through.

By the end of the year the necessary sum had been raised, and the organisers were pleased to point out that, by approaching the project through voluntary subscriptions, they had avoided placing any additional burden on the town's taxpayers.

By September 1792, when applications were being invited for the position of lighters and extinguishers, it was noted in the local press that the lamps would burn "only the best lamp-oil, and that the wicks are to be of good cotton and of sufficient size to give a good light."

The town was divided into three districts each receiving 100 lamps which were to be lit from 5pm to 3am (or from 4pm to 4am in the darkest winter months).

No lights, it was decided, would be needed for six nights around the time of the full moon. Newark's 300 oil lamps were lit for the first time on the evening of October 10, 1872, with the Nottingham Journal newspaper reporting that they made "a very brilliant appearance".

It was an assessment, however, which six years later did not impress the promotors of a new Act for improved paving and lighting in the town.

Far from commending the effect of Newark's oil lamps they insisted that "the streets, lanes and other passages are not lighted" and that much of the central part of the town was still very much a haven for crime.

It was therefore with the intention of addressing this problem on a more firm footing that their Act was passed by parliament in May 1798 - just 200 years ago - entitled "An Act for the better paving, lighting and cleansing of the streets, lanes and other public passages and places in the town of Newark upon Trent".

The Act recognised the inadequacy of Newark's existing ad hoc arrangements and, together with its other far-reaching enactments, paved the way for the introduction of the town's first integrated and effective street lighting scheme.

It was not, however, for some years - until 1832 - that the town acquired an entirely new system of street lighting through the introduction of gas.

It had all begun on July 13, 1832, at a meeting in the Clinton Arms Hotel in the Market Place, presided over by the mayor, Mr William Parker, at which it was resolved that: "It would prove a public advantage to the town of Newark to establish a gas, light and coke company for lighting by contract the streets, inns, shops, private houses and other buildings with gas."

Communication was entered into with the Commissioners of the 1789 Act, and an agreement reached whereby the new gas company was given permission to break up the streets, lay pipes, and supply 114 public lamps at a cost of £285.

A separate list was compiled of those individuals who wished to have a private gas light located on their premises.

The construction of a gas works (to manufacture the gas from coal) was immediately begun on land abutting onto Whitfield Street, with the first stone of the retort house being laid by the mayor on August 23, 1832.

Next week I will continue the story of street lighting in Newark, focusing on the widespread introduction of gas lamps throughout the town, and, in the early years of the present century, the move towards electricity.

ABOVE: Castlegate, Newark, in about 1910, looking northwards from the Corn Exchange towards the castle with one of Newark's gas lamps standing prominently in the foreground. The building on the right was occupied by the Stamford, Spalding and Boston Bank, the site being later taken over by Lloyds Bank.

<Back