Lighting at Home
As for lighting in the home—it was also done with the paraffin lamp because, don’t forget, there was no electricity, and this meant that most people’s homes and rooms were all furnished much about the same way. Every room had a good, solid, substantial table in the middle and it was on this table that the paraffin lamp stood when it got dark. The paraffin lamps were quite elegant affairs, most of them brass.
My grandfather had a very elegant bronze one with figures round the outside, and they had a couple of wicks, all adjustable. There was a glass chimney to create a draught and make as good use of the flame as they could. Over the whole lot went an opaque globe so as to spread the light. These paraffin lamps gave a very good light in a medium-sized room.
There was no problem. You could see in any corner, and sitting at the table, you could do your writing and reading or play cards. Another advantage of the paraffin lamp was, apart from providing very good light, it also provided a lot of heat. So on a hard, frosty night, coming in from outside with a paraffin lamp going in the centre and a fire in the fireplace, it was really cosy.
Street Lighting
And then of course talking about lighting, the streets of Wokingham were lit as well but they were lit by gas lamps. Wokingham had its own gas company that was situated on the Finchampstead Road opposite the new swimming pool. Sometimes if I walked into the gas works I would see men shovelling coal into the retorts. There was a gas holder at the back that went up and down.
I am not sure, but I believe that the majority of the shares in the company were held by the Borough Council, and the company was set up to provide light for the streets of Wokingham. In every street and every road—wherever you went—there were gas lamps. The streets were very well lit in those days and the lamps themselves were well maintained.
When I arrived in 1914, of course, the man went around with a light on a pole, and a bit later on, there was the bypass. All he had to do was pull the string. Later, there was a clockwork regulator that turned the lights on and off as it was needed according to the amount of daylight. A couple of chaps used to go around to every lamp in the town once a week to reset the clockwork so Wokingham was very well lit by gas lamp. And of course there was no electricity.
Ken—The question of electricity, and I think some people may have this come to their minds, when we say there was no electric supply. They will say how did the cinema manage in 1912 when it was open?
Cecil—Ah well, the local cinema had an engine at the back, driven, I’m not sure how. It must have been driven by gas. A gas engine driving a dynamo. They made their own electricity to work the Electric Theatre and that was before any electric supply came into Wokingham as general supply. I had some friends on a farm not far away and they were doing the same thing. They had a gas engine.
Ken—Well I suppose a lot of the workshops around the town worked by gas engine. I know that Edna’s father and her grandfather, in the Wire Rope Works in Denmark Street, had a gas engine running there up until the last war.
Cecil—Yes a lot of businesses used them because the internal combustion engine had not been properly developed. It was chiefly gas or steam.