General Chat

HI, ON SOME OF MY FAMILY'S BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CERTS ABT 1840'S, THE PROFESSION COMES UP AS GAS FITTER??? CAN ANYONE HELP!
I THINK IT MAYBE THE GUYS THAT USED TO LIGHT THE STREET LIGHTS BUT NOT SURE
DUSTY

Have you googled it - would houses have had gas appliances then - or coal ranges? I would think he was a lamp lighter.
Liz

Hi,
A Gas fitter would be someone who either installed gas piping to houses, factories, schools etc.

Gas lighting was very common back then,
They even used gas lighting to streets.

Found this on an old Scottish occupations site:-

Gasfitter - Fitted pipes to carry a gas supply, usually coal gas , to domestic or industrial premises.

Kath. x

In those days, Rita, it would have been Coal gas, the poisonous kind.....and was in use up to roundabout the 1960's when natural gas was introduced
Because natural gas has no smell an additive was introduced to give it a distinctive smell.....
I too have gas fitters on my mother's side.......

Bob

Thanks everyone for your replies has given me a lot to go on

Dusty

Definitely fitted gas in houses. My grandfather was a gas fitter. we had gas light in our house until 1955, light was given by gas released onto a gauze mantel, which you lit with a match, or you had a plain gas flare.