They’ve been and done and put the gas in

Lord have mercy on us all – they are going to blow us up. They’ve been and done and put the gas in at the Wesleyan Chapel and none of us will be safe in our beds.

They make the gas from coal, so my neighbour said. The smell – there’s nothing to describe it. The coal cart, with its wheels on skids, comes all the way down the hill from the railway station and ends up at the retort house behind the inn. The boys coming in the fields huddle next to the furnace to get warmed up. 

On Sunday last, Reverend Stokes told us he had raised £8 to fit gas lights and a boy lit them up. There was such a sound of popping that Mrs Hamsey and I ran out in fear, our aprons over our heads. Our Martha came to the house and told me not to be so daft, but you’re not getting me back in that place. Not as long as I live. God will have to find me up the hill at St Stephens. 

Yorkshire Gazette 14 December 1861