Monday, January 19, 2026

FIRST HOUSE LIGHTED WITH GAS AT MAZGAON CURSETJEE'S 1833




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*BOMBAY: THE STORY OF LIGHTS*
Bombay’s first gas lamp was installed in 1833 in a private home, belonging to shipbuilder Sir Ardeshir Cursetjee, who set up a plant that could convert coal to gas (Carbon Monoxide) at his house in Mazagaon, generating fuel to light up his rooms.
When John Fitzgibbon, the Governor of Bombay, visited Cursetjee’s home in 1834, he was amazed by the lights. The idea grew in his mind to light up the city.
In 1842, another businessman, Framji Cawasji Banaji, who owned much of Powai, installed gas lamps in his own home. Locals would flock to see them.
When the city got its first street lamps in 1843, they were fuelled by kerosene.
In 1862 the Bombay Gas Company was formed, which would power streetlights for more than a century.
After Arthur Crawford’s appointment as the first municipal commissioner, Gas lamps were put up at Bhendi Bazaar, Esplanade Road and Churchgate Street in 1865.
Many rich locals donated large ornamental lamps at key points in the city numbering around 220.
The Bombay Gas Company set up its headquarters in Lalbaug in 1866 on a street that is still called Gas Company Lane. It laid 400 kilometres of pipelines to distribute coal gas to the lamps. But they still had to be manually lit.
A municipal gas lamp-lighter would run from lamp to lamp, crisscrossing the streets, using a long pole with a hook at the end to bring a flame in contact with lamp. It was quite a show. During the first few weeks, locals would follow him, transfixed by his movements. By morning, he’d return to extinguish the lights.
By 1874, Bombay’s gas lamp count stood at 2415, with Queens Road alone accounting for 72 lamps by the following year. By 1876, Mahim and today’s Prabhadevi also got gas lamps. Every month, gas company workers would clean the lamps out, handpumping foul-smelling brown water that collected in the pipes.
In 1882, the first electric lamps started to appear, and Crawford market became the first public structure to be lit by electricity. It was a short-lived upgrade. The electricity company ran out of money, bringing gas lamps back in a few years.
In 1923, 47 major junctions got electric lamps made from tungsten filaments. By 1938 Bombay experimented with mercury vapour lamps along the Hornby Vellard Road (Dr Annie Besant Road) in Worli.
In 1947 the British owned Bombay Gas Company was bought over by an Indian firm with interests in jute, tea and engineering, which also bought out the Calcutta Gas Company.
In 1950, the BEST switched from gas to electric lamps which was met with public uproar. The issue gas or electric, was put to vote. Lights of varying fuel, brightness and colour were installed at public squares and ballot boxes below each of them collected public votes. The BEST also conducted awareness drives. Electric lights won.
Marine Drive was illuminated by Gas Lamps till around 1963 and when lights were switched over from Gas To Electric, it was declared that the "Queen's Necklace" had turned from Gold to pearls!
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Abhijeet Shrikhande
It's not a bad idea!
But in view of the price of gas nowadays, if gas lighting were to be installed in the city, we would all go bankrupt!
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