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APPENDIX (NO. 3).
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR GEORGE GORNEWALL LEWIS, BARONET,
ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE.
The Rumble Memorial of the Vestry of Rotherhithe, in the County of Surrey.
Sheweth, 'That your Memoralists' Parish contains a population of twenty
thousand inhabitants, and is supplied with gas by a Company, called "The Surrey
Consumers' Gas Company.
That by combination with other Gas Companies, one of which formerly supplied
the Parish of Rotherhithe with gas, the Surrey Consumers' Gas Company obtained the
exclusive supply to this Parish, and the inhabitants of the Parish are unable in consequence
to obtain a supply of gas from any other source.
That very numerous complaints have, during the last two years, been made to your
Memoralists of the inefficient, irregular, and impure supply of gas provided by the said
Company, as well to the inhabitants as private consumers, as to the public lamps, and
representations on the subject have been repeatedly made to the said Company, but
without effect.
That from the 4th to the 16th days of January, 1860, the impurity of the gas
supplied by the said, Company was so great as to render it not only unfit for burning
in private houses, but also most injurious to the health of the inhabitants of this
Parish, in consequence of its having been sent into the mains and pipes in a most
improper state.
That in many of the houses in the Parish it was impossible to burn the gas without
the production of noxious fumes rendering the houses quite uninhabitable.
That on the 15th of January last, the several churches in the Parish were filled
with these noxious fumes, which were so bad as most materially to incommode the
congregations who suffered greatly by the inhalation thereof.
That several of the inhabitants of this Parish suffered so severely in health by
reason of inhaling these noxious fumes, that they have been compelled to place themselves
under medical treatment, and it was found absolutely necessary, in many houses, to
discontinue the burning of gas therein for several days.
That there is no provision in the Gas Works Clauses Act for preventing such
a great evil, or for enforcing a penalty on a Company which supplies impure and
unwholesome gas.