Belfast: 'Evolution of Lighting: Ireland'. Gas Works, mechanical stoker and drawer
More from this collection
Related by Where
Research Help!
Where: Unknown
Try to find the spot where the photographer was standing.
When: 01 January 1900
Try to find the date or year when this image was made.
Advances in science and technology to start this week with public lighting evolving in Belfast. After the eons during which lighting was by candle or taper moving over to gas lighting must have seemed to be a revolutionary advance?
Whether an incremental or exponential advance, this mechanical stoker device must have allowed a LOT more coke and coal to be fed and maintained in these numerous furnaces. While it must've put at least a few chaps out of work, one imagines their lungs (and backs) were better off at least......
Collection: Mason Photographic Collection
Date: Catalogue range c.1890-1910
NLI Ref: M8/8
You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
Source: Flickr Commons
Views: 16040
Whether an incremental or exponential advance, this mechanical stoker device must have allowed a LOT more coke and coal to be fed and maintained in these numerous furnaces. While it must've put at least a few chaps out of work, one imagines their lungs (and backs) were better off at least......
Collection: Mason Photographic Collection
Date: Catalogue range c.1890-1910
NLI Ref: M8/8
You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
Info:
Owner: National Library of Ireland on The CommonsSource: Flickr Commons
Views: 16040
thomasholmesmason
thomasmayne
thomashmasonsonslimited
lanternslides
nationallibraryofireland
lighting
belfast
ulster
automated
gasworks
coalfired
mechanicalstoker
stoker
mechanisation
automation
industrialautomation
Add Tags
Add Tags
Niall McAuley
Gas lighting was not new in 1900, electricity was already replacing it.
Niall McAuley
The innovation here is a machine which stokes the boiler instead of having men with shovels do it.
abandoned railways
Belfast Gasworks was built on Ormeau Road, between 1887 and 1893. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtjBjgHkAAM
DannyM8
Robots taking jobs in 1900 - the headlines do not change!!
Niall McAuley
Wikipedia article on the Mechanical Stoker
robinparkes
There were gas lamps in the street where I lived off the Antrim Road in Belfast in the early 50s. I remember the lamplighter coming each evening.
AndyBrii
West's Compressed air charging machine - (in Gas Manufacture Chemistry by Butterfield 1896): https://www.flickr.com/photos/angeljim46/23962376907/in/dateposted-public/ This replaced manual charging (below): https://www.flickr.com/photos/angeljim46/38111077104/in/dateposted-public/
geogblog2
This was a coal gasification process. Any word on carburetted water gas?
jamica1
Wonderful image
oaktree_brian_1976
I was going to say it's not natural gas, it's made from coal.
National Library of Ireland on The Commons
Thanks [https://www.flickr.com/photos/gnmcauley], [https://www.flickr.com/photos/abandonedrailsireland], [https://www.flickr.com/photos/angeljim46], and everyone else! I somehow hadn't really married the words "mechanical" and "stoker" to understand what a useful and essential piece of kit this must have been. I've updated the description. But not the map. Do we think we could map it to the mighty gasworks on the Ormeau Road?
Dr. Ilia
Excellent composition!