Murdock returned to Soho in 1798, to take up his permanent residence in the neighbourhood. When the mine owners heard of his intention to leave Cornwall, they combined in offering him a handsome salary provided he would remain in the county; but his attachment to his friends at Soho would not allow him to comply with their request. He again urged the firm of Boulton and Watt to take out a patent for the use of gas for lighting purposes.
But being still embroiled in their tedious and costly lawsuit, they were naturally averse to risk connection with any other patent. Watt the younger, with whom Murdock communicated on the subject, was aware that the current of gas obtained from the distillation of coal in Lord Dundonald's tar-ovens had been occasionally set fire to, and also that Bishop Watson and others had burned gas from coal, after conducting it through tubes, or after it had issued from the retort. Mr. Watt was, however, quite satisfied that Murdock was the first person who had suggested its economical application for public and private uses.
But he was not clear, after the legal difficulties which had been raised as to his father's patent rights, that it would be safe to risk a further patent for gas.
Mr. Murdock's suggestion, accordingly, was not acted upon. But he went on inventing in other directions. He thenceforward devoted himself entirely to mechanical pursuits. Mr. Buckle has said of him:-- "The rising sun often found him, after a night spent in incessant labour, still at the anvil or turning-lathe;for with his own hands he would make such articles as he would not intrust to unskilful ones." In 1799 he took out a patent (No. 2340), embodying some very important inventions. First, it included the endless screw working into a toothed-wheel, for boring steam-cylinders, which is still in use. Second, the casting of a steam-jacket in one cylinder, instead of being made in separate segments bolted together with caulked joints, as was previously done. Third, the new double-D slide-valve, by which the construction and working of the steam-engine was simplified, and the loss of steam saved, as well as the cylindrical valve for the same purpose. And fourth, improved rotary engines. One of the latter was set to drive the machines in his private workshop, and continued in nearly constant work and in perfect use for about thirty years.
In 1801, Murdock sent his two sons William and John to the Ayr Academy, for the benefit of Scotch education. In the summer-time they spent their vacation at Bellow Mill, which their grandfather still continued to occupy. They fished in the river, and "caught a good many trout." The boys corresponded regularly with their father at Birmingham. In 1804, they seem to have been in a state of great excitement about the expected landing of the French in Scotland. The volunteers of Ayr amounted to 300 men, the cavalry to 150, and the riflemen to 50. "The riflemen," says John, "go to the seashore every Saturday to shoot at a target. They stand at 70 paces distant, and out of 100 shots they often put in 60bullets!" William says, "Great preparations are still making for the reception of the French. Several thousand of pikes are carried through the town every week; and all the volunteers and riflemen have received orders to march at a moment's warning."The alarm, however, passed away. At the end of 1804, the two boys received prizes; William got one in arithmetic and another in the Rector's composition class; and John also obtained two, one in the mathematical class, and the other in French.
To return to the application of gas for lighting purposes. In 1801, a plan was proposed by a M. Le Blond for lighting a part of the streets of Paris with gas. Murdock actively resumed his experiments; and on the occasion of the Peace of Amiens in March, 1802, he made the first public exhibition of his invention. The whole of the works at Soho were brilliantly illuminated with gas.
The sight was received with immense enthusiasm. There could now be no doubt as to the enormous advantages of this method of producing artificial light, compared with that from oil or tallow. In the following year the manufacture of gas-making apparatus was added to the other branches of Boulton and Watts'
business, with which Murdock was now associated,--and as much as from 4000L. to 5000L. of capital were invested in the new works.
The new method of lighting speedily became popular amongst manufacturers, from its superior safety, cheapness, and illuminating power. The mills of Phillips and Lee of Manchester were fitted up in 1805; and those of Burley and Kennedy, also of Manchester, and of Messrs. Gott, of Leeds, in subsequent years.
Though Murdock had made the uses of gas-lighting perfectly clear, it was some time before it was proposed to light the streets by the new method. The idea was ridiculed by Sir Humphry Davy, who asked one of the projectors if he intended to take the dome of St. Paul's for a gasometer! Sir Waiter Scott made many clever jokes about those who proposed to "send light through the streets in pipes;" and even Wollaston, a well known man of science, declared that they "might as well attempt to light London with a slice from the moon." It has been so with all new projects--with the steamboat, the locomotive, and the electric telegraph.
As John Wilkinson said of the first vessel of iron which he introduced, "it will be only a nine days' wonder, and afterwards a Columbus's egg."On the 25th of February, 1808, Murdock read a paper before the Royal Society "On the Application of Gas from Coal to economical purposes." He gave a history of the origin and progress of his experiments, down to the time when he had satisfactorily lit up the premises of Phillips and Lee at Manchester. The paper was modest and unassuming, like everything he did.
