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William
Sugg & Co
1837 - 1969 |
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William
Sugg & Co
1837 - 1969 |
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Columns & Brackets
This illustration taken from William Sugg's book "Modern Street Lighting" first printed in 1871, indicates the care and detail that went into every product that came from the Sugg factory and foundry. Londoners and those who have walked by the river Thames will perhaps recognize the main shaft of the right hand post with its twisted fish design which matches the magnificent pedestals still mounted on The Embankment wall with Globe Lamps. These Globe Lamps are shown in the Street Lantern section under 'Lighting' as are both the Lambeth & Whitehall on the posts above. The left hand post was a popular design available in no less than 4 sizes as a single post and 3 sizes with a triple head and an even larger variation 16, 18 and 20 ft tall. At least one good example exists in Hyde Park and it carries the Sugg 'En Avant' (In Advance) logo as shown below.
Although it may look unlikely from the photograph, if you find this post in the centre of Hyde Park quite near 'Ranger's Lodge', you will discover that it is surprisingly large. The point where the tapered section meets the diamond pattern shaft is the best part of 6ft off the ground!
The two pictures above show another of these Sugg
posts, this time in New Zealand which, according to the plaque is "one
of 9 posts converted to carbon arc in 1915" (You can just see William
turning in his grave).
Here we have another 'find'. This
extraordinary post is clearly the same design as the others. It
was found at Lydney Harbour on the river Severn where it acted for many
years as a warning light. In the close-up you can see the remains
of a circular lantern base on a typical 4 legged mounting 'frog'.
An archive picture indicates that this was a globe lamp with part of the
glazing blacked out. In its original gas lit state the open flame
burner would have been mounted rigidly on the gas pipe passing up the
post. Ignoring the crudely added electrical insulators, presumably
from a later overhead wiring addition, the wheel and pinion are driven
by a shaft passing up the outside of the post from a crank handle.
The ladder was obviously mounted permanently to enable the operator to
clean the lantern glass and attend to the burner - maybe even lighting
it every time it was required - in this clearly exposed location.
Exactly how and when it was operated has not been discovered as yet but
by rotating the lantern with the crank the light could be made to flash
across the harbour in the same way as a lighthouse. Under what
circumstances this manual operation was used is unknown although fog
seems to be quite likely --- but perhaps somebody who reads this might
be able to
Finally for this obviously very popular Sugg post these two pictures show other extant originals, on the left at Marlborough College with a horrid electric adaptation and on the right, more at home perhaps, in the car park of The Royal Oak public house! Many of the very decorative cast iron posts dating before about 1900 are extremely large because of the huge lanterns they supported. As explained in the section on Street Lanterns but worth repeating here, the lanterns grew progressively larger with the demand for more light because the only way to achieve this in the days before the invention of the mantle was to fit larger or multiple flame burners. The heat from these burners was sufficient to melt the solder that held the copper lanterns together if they were not large enough to allow for sufficient air movement to keep the temperature under control.
This magnificent column is one of two still in their original location at the top of Northumberland Avenue, albeit with the later Parkinson High Pressure lanterns recently refurbished and electrically operated (see below the text). The accompanying note from the Metropolitan of October 27th 1883 provides interesting detail as follows.
This is the same magnificent column photographed September 2007. The original globe lanterns were replaced by Parkinson high pressure lanterns which remained in place long after they had stopped working and have only recently been tidily refurbished and converted to electricity. The second post is near Admiralty Arch at the top of The Mall.
The 'cherubs' around the centre of the column
have been coyly linking arms for The Northumberland Avenue Sugg Globes are illustrated and discussed in the section on Large Lanterns
LOTS TO COME - DO CALL BACK - CHECK THE DATE ON THE HOME PAGE.
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