The Music Hall dates from 1857 and originally provided a wooden bench seated accommodation for 880 persons, with standing room for a further 300. When the new projection room was added in 1897 this brought about the need for the installation of electricity, which could well have made it one of the first buildings in Glasgow to have electrical lighting.

Gaslighting – An Introduction to the “House of Sugg”.

By Chris Sugg  the Great – great – grandson  of  William Sugg, the founder of the firm.

Thomas Sugg, an ironmonger, is credited with “making and laying” the first gas pipe which was used for the first demonstration of gas lighting in the capital in 1807.  His son, William, formed William Sugg & Co. in 1837 and his son, William Thomas became the driving force after his father’s death in 1860 right through to 1907. 

The underlying principle of all of WT’s work was technical excellence.  The exponential growth of the Gas Industry, driven very largely by the demand for gas street lighting, produced the usual crop of cheap and nasty fixtures which were doubtless bought in quantity by unsuspecting customers who knew nothing about the subject.  With the earliest gas jets being formed from holes drilled in iron pipes, corrosion could quite quickly increase the size of the “jet” and thus the amount of gas consumed.  Possibly William’s first really important patent was for the non corrodible jet made of steatite, a naturally occurring ceramic which could be turned on a lathe and then fired to achieve an extreme hardness.  In classic style, the waste powder from this exercise was compacted into tins and sold as “Pearly Queen” tooth powder – doubtless sufficiently abrasive to remove more than just the normal level of dirt!

The demand for ever increasing levels of illumination on the streets could only be achieved by increasing the number of gas jets burning in the lanterns.  These open flame lanterns grew and grew to allow for the enormous heat produced by up to 20 jets.

     

The lanterns illustrated above reached 7ft in height and 46” across, requiring substantial and imposing lamp posts to support them.

Meanwhile the electrical industry had been developing.  Although the early arc lamps could produce huge amounts of light they were very unreliable and expensive to run.  The invention of the gas mantle turned the tables on the electricians, retaining the lead of gas for street lighting for something like another 50 years.  They also provided the death knell for the enormous lanterns which is why they are so rare today. 

The well known Windsor lantern introduced by William Sugg in 1898 was the first lantern designed specifically to use the gas mantle.   Sugg’s had manufactured no less than 50,000 Windsor lanterns by the time the 1906 catalogue was printed, a staggering number in 8 years and largely by hand.

      

Although there are many Sugg gas lights that came after William’s death, the Rochester and Littleton shadowless lanterns are by far the most popular and recognizable, particularly because of the huge numbers used by the railways and the surprising number that are still in use today, particularly in places such as Westminster and Covent Garden - still running on gas.