Mar 14 2010
Development Of Gas Shades During The Victorian Period
Victorian style glass lamp shades continue to be popular today, two hundred years after their first introduction and some hundred years after they were superseded by the successor: the electrical light. The reason why they are popular today is partly due to their classical aesthetic appeal, and partly due to their continued functional relevance as shades for the tungsten light bulb.
The Victorian era glass shade spread during Queen Victoria’s reign of Great Britain; however, the origins can be placed further back to the invention of the first controlled gas lighting device. In the late 18th century in Great Britain, an inventor named William Murdoch became the first man to try hooking up a gas supply with consistent flow rate to fuel a gas flame.
Murdoch was in the employment of a steam engine and coal mining company. During his spare time in the company, he would try to find uses for coal gas. The fruits of these efforts resulted in new inventions.
His initial forays involved hooking up both his own residence and the buildings of his employer. He designed and fashioned lamps himself, and fascinated the generation’s onlookers who came from all over town to gawk. Likewise, his coworker Samuel Clegg was amazed by the sight so much that he quit his position at the company to start up a gas light firm.
Murdoch’s ventures were not the only ones. For example, the German Friedrich Winzer applied for exclusive patent protection on coal gas-fueled lamps in the early 1800s. Another man, Phillipe Lebon of France, set up gas powered lamps for light his home and home exterior. Soon after his experiments, the city of Paris took it upon itself to light the streets with gas power.
The impact of the first city-wide lights is hard to overstate. City-mandated lights meant that streets could become highly usable even in the evening hours, extending hours of commerce and travel. In addition, the streets became much less hospital to criminals who found it harder to commit crimes in the glare of the gas lamps.
The effects extended to the indoors as homes began to install gas lamps and glass lamp shades. This lead to the development of an artistic and home design industry, spawning luminaries such as Louis Comfort Tiffany, who worked on devising and perfecting glass lamp shades.
The result was the rich period of Victorian glass lamp shades, defined by globular shapes with ornate designs on acid etched glass. The Victorian style is not the only one, for other styles such as TIffany, student, school house and hurricane shades proliferated as light glasswork became more common.
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