Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Gaslights
Caption: "A Peep at the Gas-lights in Pall Mall", a humorous caricature of reactions to the installation of the new invention of gas-burning street lighting on Pall-Mall, London, engraved 1809.
If the idea of a gaslight brings an image to mind, it is probably a Victorian one. Some people might picture a scene with a lamplighter going about his evening duties lighting the street lamps. Others might picture a formal parlor lit by gaslights. Either way, the scene is Victorian.
Gaslights were one of the things that gave the Victorian era its character. They helped to bring in a new age in which people felt safe to walk along the streets in the evening. It was an age in which friends and families could spend an evening at home playing games or reading in a brightly lit parlor.
Gaslights were first used in the 1790s as inventors in several countries tried using gas to light their homes. In England, William Murdock lighted his house using coal gas as fuel. In Germany, Friedrich Winzer patented the coal gaslight, and in France, Phillippe Lebon used gaslights to light up his house and gardens.
