Posted by - John Barnes This little story is about a Walsall man and one of the great inventions of our time – and of course a street! There is a paragraph in this little story that tells of an happening in Walsall that no one in Walsall or probably in the entire nation will experience – ever! Try and spot it! Do you remember those two up, two down terraced houses most of us of a certain age used to live in - many with gas mantles for lighting, which backed straight onto the footpath, and with outdoor loo`s up the yard which used to freeze every winter no matter how much lagging went around the lead pipes and not forget the loo paper hanging on every dads invention called a piece of wire. There are still many of those houses still forming the backbone of many areas in the UK. In Walsall – now of course, they are mostly all modernised and in better and stronger condition than recently built ones! Think back about those houses – forget the two bedrooms upstairs where in winter the ice was on the windows ‘inside’ the bedrooms, concentrate on the downstairs. The gas pipe used to come from under the footpath, under the doorstep – you know, the one that dads used to sharpen the knives on, ready to cut the ‘rationed’ meat wafer thin for Sunday lunch – the main meal of the week! From under the doorstep into the house the gas pipe ran along the top of the six inch high skirting board through the front [ the best] room into the living room [lounge] then into the kitchen and connected to the stove [the cooker]. The gas was different in those days to what you get today – you could smell it…strongly. The gas cooker and that manufactured gas often caused the enamel saucepans and kettles to spring a leak. A leak did not mean a new saucepan or kettle of course – we were rather inventive. One would go to a hardware shop and buy metal patches to seal the leak. Our nearest hardware shop was in a row of shops in Birchills St opposite Francis Street with the ‘cook’ shop on the corner of Birchills St and Blue Lane and the beautiful smell of faggots and pase wafting as far as St Andrews , St Patrick`s, the Engine pub and the flour mill, oh…that smell. If that lady who owned that cooked meat shop was still around today selling faggots and pase with that beautiful aroma there wouldn`t be a Indian or Chinese restaurant in the entire town. All activity in the house was in the living room – a 1940`s type of lino often covered the cold quarry tiles with a bodged home made rug on top of that. We all had to do our bit to make those technicoloured rugs – I hated cutting the old coats, trousers or old skirts into six or eight inch strips because the scissors hurt my fingers. The front room was for use on Sundays, Christmas and birthdays, or for dad to practise on the dart board, hanging on the middle door – the door looked as though it had got woodworm – he was supposed to be a good dart thrower – he played for the Elephant and Castle and the Hamemakers – so how come he missed the dart board so often to make the door look as though it was infested with woodworm? There was a cupboard in the corner of most front rooms which housed the electric and gas meters and always a faint smell of gas from that cupboard but it seemed the same in other houses . In the evening Mom would be knitting, darning, sewing, looking through our hair or getting the cod liver oil ready to ram it into our mouths . Dick Barton Special agent would be on radio, powered by an accumulator, then, at a critical point mom would give one of us a penny. ‘Go and put that in the gas meter ready for the kettle in the morning.’ In the slot meter went the penny – it was the same with the electric meter. You would turn the little lever and listen to the penny drop. When Mr Bishop [he also owned the newsagents next to Sargents barbers on W`ton Rd before Wally and Peggy Hawkes and later Dennis Clenton ran it] the electric meter reader came and emptied the electric meter, mom nearly always got some money back – according to how much money was put in the slot meter - a bit like the Co-op dividend without waiting in a queue. Now I bet anyone reading this is wondering where this is leading to – think ‘slot meter.’ Well, the ‘slot meter’ was invented by one of our very own – a Walsall fella! I say Walsall although he was born in Tipton in 1834. In 1851 and aged seventeen he lived in Walsall where he spent most of his life – certainly until around 1884. His name was Rowland William Brownhill. Rowland was the second of seven sons in a family of ten! Rowland`s father was an iron founder – William Brownhill & Sons business was Green Lane Foundry, whilst a brother operated a brickworks. In 1860 Rowland married Emily a daughter of Sam Foley a boiler maker from Bilston – they raised a son and four daughters. Rowland filed his first patent in 1873 for machines to weigh goods and trucks - over the years he filed another seventeen patents – several were for weighing machines of heavy goods but one was for brick making. Walsall`s Rowland Brownhill was a bit of an all rounder! Brownhill got involved in council affairs and was elected to the town council in 1867, he was mayor of Walsall in 1872 and again in 1873, he was also an alderman but he retired from the council in 1880. Two of Rowland`s brothers also became mayors of Walsall – William in 1891 and Theophilus in 1893. During much of Rowland`s term of office he was chairman of the corporation gas committee. In 1877 Pleck Gas Works came into being, near the canal. The previous Gas Works in Wolverhampton St – entrance opposite the Engine Pub ran to top of Pleck Rd to the bottom lock became the gas maintenance and storage yard and also the corporation yard. The borough purchased the whole of the gas undertaking of Birmingham gas works within the Walsall boundary. For over twenty years, Walsall, by supplying itself enjoyed gas at a cheaper rate than anywhere else in Britain. The profits were such that in 1883 – 84 no rate [council tax] was levied on the residents of Walsall. It was around this time that Brownhill moved to Trinity Road, Aston in Birmingham and because of his engineering skills became an engineering valuer and created one of his finest inventions – patent number 7012 registered in 1887 was a penny - slot - meter measuring a supply of gas by units. It was tested in a group of houses in Birmingham and soon came into general use with Brownhill continuing various improvements on his patent. Coin operated slot machines had been in existence from about 1857 for cigarettes and other small items and Brownhill had himself patented a coin operated weighing machine earlier in 1887. However, gas was far different than a cigarette machine – it needed to be controlled – it was gas….and gas explodes! Brownhill engaged W Parkinson & Co to manufacture the meters using his slot meters for the money and to show the units of gas to the amount of pennies put in the slot meter. This early pre-payment slot meter supplied gas to many homes, giving occupants the benefit of gas lighting and cooking by gas without getting into debt. Brownhill, assigned his gas meter patents and licence rights to a new Pre-Payment Gas Meter Company for £50,000. £5,000 of which was to be in cash. It seems his family did not benefit from this deal for on August 11, 1895 he died unexpectedly, survived by his wife, but leaving an estate valued at only £40. And now we come to the end : - just down Bentley Lane there is a little street known as ROWLAND STREET - named after Rowland William Brownhill – the man who gave us those penny gas slot meters measuring gas in units to our homes. One of my school friends George Kelley came from Rowland St. George was a tall blond kid – his hair was actually white. George always carried either a cricket or tennis ball in his pocket and a walk over Reedswood Park often resulted in George seeing how many times he could hit the thickness of a goalpost bowling from about 25 yards – probably once in every three tries. Vic Brittain`s garage which was on the corner of Rowland Street and Bentley Lane was where we had our first old banger from – it was £40.00 and needed work doing to it – like the floor and one door had rotted away. A sheet of metal and a few pop rivets covered by about five layers of tar did the trick. Over fifty years later I still have that pop rivet gun and the pop rivets. So, in a way, Rowland Street was also one of my special little streets.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 08:30:32 +0000
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