Report from the Select Committee on Lighting the House; Together with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix

[Gurney, Goldsworthy; subject]

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Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 20 May 1842; Parliamentary paper number 251; large quarto, 215 x 345mm, pp 36; self-covered and sewn as commonly done; front gathering nearly loose and with a small tear (around 25mm) near the top but without loss; some dust marking on the outside leaves but overall in good, clean condition. . . The Report is concerned, as the title shows, with the issue of how the House of Commons might be lighted. Much of the material relates to the practical and experimental work carried out by a purported specialist in this area, a Mr Goldsworthy Gurney, who had contracted in 1839 with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to investigate at the cost of the Eschequer with the amount to be paid determined by a vote of the House. Gurney was a Cornish chemist, architect, lecturer and inventor inn the style of a gentleman scientist. Among other work he invented a number of steam powered road vehicles in the 1820s and became known for work on developing a blowlamp using hydrogen and oxygen together to produce an intensely hot flame and which in turn led to work on developing limelight. A practical application of this was the development of an intensely bright oil lamp using directly fed oxygen, called by him the Bude Light, named after his birthplace in Cornwall. It was this light which was installed in the House of Commons from the trial beginning in 1839 and served to light the building for over half a century until later displaced by electrical lighting. . See also the next work, item 784, where the matter of extending the work to the House of Lonrds is reported on.

Codice articolo 000783

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• Titolo: Report from the Select Committee on Lighting the House; Together with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix
• Rilegatura: Soft cover
• Condizione: Good
• Peso: 109 grammi