as-1843
1916: An album of photographs of the Macclesfield Carburetted Water Gas Plant
John Clayton, Photographer :
Photographs of [the] Carburetted Water Gas Plant, Installed at the Macclesfield Gas Works by Messrs Humphreys & Glasgow, Ltd., London.
Privately photographed and issued, 1916.
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A cloth-bound photograph album, 7.5 x 9 inches, containing 13 original photographs, each approximately 6 inches x 4 inches or larger, of the installation of carburetted water plant equipment within the Macclesfield Gas Works in 1916.
This Macclesfield installation is of special importance in the successful attempts by the gas industry to produce a mixture
of ordinary coal gas and water gas in one operation by steaming the retorts, either continuously or intermittently, during
the carbonisation process.
"The first experiments ... with the continuous system of steaming were carried out at Macclesfield by G. E. Blundell in 1917, and the results are
recorded in a paper read before the Manchester District Institute of Gas Engineers, on October 27th in that year ...Since the results of the Macclesfield experiments and trials with steaming have been published, this system of producing water gas in situ without the erection of any special plant has become very generally adopted in the gas industry." (V.B. Lewes, edited by John Kershaw: Liquid and Gaseous Fuels and the Part They Play in Modern Power Production. London: Constable, 2nd edition, 1921).
The album was compiled by John Clayton, Joiner, Builder and Contractor of Sunderland Street, Macclesfield, the building contractor involved in the installation, provided with a hand-written pen and ink "title-page", as above", and presented to
"Mr. Angell".
In very good unmarked condition, the photographs being particularly crisp and fresh. Protected in a modern handmade archival cloth slipcase, leather label titled in gilt.
Overall, an outstanding record, almost certainly unique and unpublished elsewhere, of the experimental Carburetted Water Gas Plant at Macclesfield Gas Works during the First World War.
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