GAS PIPE MAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 November 1940, Page 6

GAS PIPE MAN

0 CORNELIUS WHITEHOUSE'S WORK Before reading further go to look at a gas-pipe. It is a memorial to Cornelius Whitehouse who was born in 1795. and died in poverty at 89. Murdock gave us gas-lighting, but his invention would have gone a very little way if Cornelius had not come upon the scene. No one thought of making long lengths of gas-pipe till I Cornelius thought of it. They were content to make iron pipes in a forge, the longest, lengths about four feet. Then Cornelius set to work soon after Waterloo, and he gave Staffordj shire a new industry, manufacturing i long lengths of piping by an entirely i new process. He had great difficul- | ties to contend with, but at last he got a firm to do the work, and thought himself lucky to have a Cottage and thirty shillings a week as his reward for an invention which put hundreds into other people's pockets. For a time he had a little triumph when Wednesbury gave him a public celebration. He was awarded £5OO a year as a royalty on his patents, but the firm he had founded was broken bx a foolish and envious man. and Cornelius set up in business on his own. and went bankrupt. In the end he made frying pans till one day his hand was crushed in a machine. After that he lived miserably till death put an end to his hard life. But he remains one of the most astonishing of .men, for he gave us one of the most useful of all building materials. and though forgotten he has left us all his debtors.