Lamp post outside 24 Russell Street

Summary

A gas street light comprising a column dated 1910 by William Sugg and Company Limited, with a replacement Upright Rochester-type lantern installed by Sugg Lighting Limited, in the later C20.

Reasons for Designation

The lamp post outside 24 Russell Street, a gas street light comprising a column dated 1910 by William Sugg and Company Limited, with a replacement Upright Rochester-type lantern installed by Sugg Lighting Limited, in the later C20, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
 
Historic interest:
 
* as a good example of an historic lamp column with the latest improved lantern, illustrating the final stage of the evolution of gas lighting technology in the C20;
*   as one of a number of lamp posts originally installed around Covent Garden in 1910 to mark the beginning of George V's reign.
 
Architectural interest:
 
*   for the well-crafted, decorative column in cast iron, which is a good example of early C20 street furniture;
* for the design of the 1980s Upright Rochester lantern, the final C20 evolution of the enduring, inverted and 'shadowless' gas lamp, designed by William Sugg and Company Limited and updated by Sugg Lighting Limited.
 
Group value
 
*    as part of an adjacent set of historic lamp posts on Russell Street and Catherine Street and a wider group across other key streets within the Covent Garden area.

History

Gas street lighting first appeared in London in June 1807 when Frederick Albert Winsor gave a public demonstration of gas lights in Pall Mall. The expansion of the railways coinciding with the development of urban gas works in the 1840s facilitated the proliferation of cast iron lamp posts with open-flame gas burners across the capital in the mid-C19. This feature of industrialisation was seen to contribute to London’s international standing and also facilitated the development of modern urban living, increasingly unconstrained by daylight hours.
 
Electric street lighting was introduced from the 1880s and the gas industry responded by making technological improvements to gas lights, principally the incandescent gas mantle in 1896. This significantly increased the efficacy of gas light, but it was not until the introduction of the inverted gas mantle in 1905 that gas street lights were really able to match the efficiency and brightness of the rival electric carbon filament lamps. In the 1920s and 1930s, many gas lamp posts in Westminster were upgraded with new lanterns fitted with inverted mantles. Gas remained an important source of power for street lighting as late as the mid-C20, and smaller numbers of lamps have continued to run on gas into the early C21.
 
Russell Street was built under leases granted in 1631 and 1632 and was fully inhabited by about 1637. It was named after the Russell family, including the Earls and Dukes of Bedford and became a popular street due to its proximity to the Drury Lane Theatre, the Covent Garden Piazza and later the Theatre Royal, built around 1732.

The lamp post outside 24 Russell Street was probably installed as part of a planned lighting scheme in 1910 by William Sugg and Company Limited to mark the beginning of King George V's reign. The replacement Rochester-type lantern, cradle and clock box, were supplied by Sugg Lighting Limited in the later C20, probably to replace a broken unit.

Founded in Westminster in 1837, William Sugg and Company Limited became an important supplier of interior and exterior gas lighting and received important commissions such as lighting the exterior of Buckingham Palace in 1901. After initially operating from Marsham Street, for most of its lifetime the company was based at Vincent Works, Regency Street. Lighting manufacture was paused during the First World War while the company produced munitions, but post-war work picked up with the production of conversion sets for pre-war street lanterns, many of which still had upright mantles and required updating to more efficient inverted mantles. The company was acquired by Thorn Electrical Industries Limited in 1968, but in 1973 a new incarnation of the company called Sugg Lighting Limited was formed and continued to produce specialist gas lighting fixtures based on historic models.

Details

A gas street light comprising a column dated 1910 by William Sugg and Company Limited, with a replacement Upright Rochester-type lantern installed by Sugg Lighting Limited, in the later C20. 
 
MATERIALS: cast iron lamp post, with a glazed lantern of iron, spun copper and enamelled steel.
 
DESCRIPTION: the lamp post consists of a tapering, fluted, 'Eddystone' column topped with a late-C20 Upright Rochester-type lantern.
 
The upper part of the base of the column has the Westminster City Council wording and crest on one side and on the other, the royal cypher G V R and a date of 1910. The lower ring is embossed with the manufacturers name SUGG.
 
The replacement lantern has a circular drum and rain-shield above an inverted, six-mantle burner in a teardrop-shaped glass enclosure with a drainage hole to its base. The assembly is suspended in an iron cradle with two, curved stabilising uprights projecting from the clock box.

Sources

Books and journals
Pollard, N E, 'A Short History of Public Lighting in the City of Westminster' in IPLE Lighting Journal, Vol. ., (March 1984), 53-58

Websites
Survey of London: Volume 36, Covent Garden: Bow Street and Russell Street Area, accessed 26 May 2023 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol36/pp192-195
James Boswell - Russell Street, accessed 27 May 2023 from https://www.jamesboswell.info/content/russell-street-london#:~:text=Russell%20Street%20was%20built%20in,Covent%20Garden%20built%20in%201732.

Other
'One Hundred Years' a brochure produced to commemorate the centenary of William Sugg & Company (1937) accessed 8 June 2023 from https://williamsugghistory.co.uk/

End of official list entry

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