The Gas Men Cometh
Personalities at the Crystal Palace District Gas
Company 1854-1904
During the 50-year life of the Crystal Palace District Gas
Company, the executive officers were drawn from just five families, all with
links to the gas industry elsewhere in Britain
The five family names were Ohren, Cathels, Watson, Gandon
and Shoubridge.
Below is a brief outline of these families’ connection
with the Crystal Palace District Gas Company, and the sequence of their
involvement, followed by a more detailed biography of each of the major
players.
Magnus Ohren was engineer/manager of the Crystal
Palace District Gas Co from a year after the company’s formation and also
became secretary a little later. He gave up the role of manager in 1865 when, owing
to the rapid growth of the undertaking, the combined job became too much for
one person. He remained secretary until the autumn of 1893 when, aged 71, his
health started to fail. He died in 1907.
He was succeeded as secretary by his son Charles Magnus
Ohren who retained the position until the company was absorbed by the South
Suburban Gas Co.
When Magnus Ohren gave up the role of manager, this post
was taken by Scotsman Edmund Cathels, but he and many of his family
emigrated to North America in 1872 and another Scotsman,
James Watson, was appointed manager. Although Watson later moved on to
the Herne Bay Gas Co, his daughter Elizabeth married Charles Ohren and his son,
James Clarke Watson, continued to work for the Crystal
Palace
The next manager – for 20 years, from 1877 to 1897 – was Charles
Gandon, and he was followed by Sydney Yarrell Shoubridge, who
remained in post until the 1904 take-over by South Suburban.
Magnus Ohren
Magnus
Ohren was born in Rotherhithe on 8
December 1821 , the son of Charles Ohren, a wharfinger of Swedish
descent. His connection with the gas industry began with his apprenticeship in
1837 to Geddie Pearse, the engineer-in-chief of the British Gas Co, whose London School House Lane
Ohren
remained with the company until 1846, when he went to Hamburg England
Ohren
joined the Crystal Palace District Gas Co in 1855 and during his time with the
company, was granted two patents, one for “an improvement in the manufacture of
gas, and the apparatus connected therewith” and the other for “improvements in
the construction of gasholders, and in the mode of rendering gasholders self-acting”.
Ohren was
well known in gas-engineering circles, both for his technical and for his
financial connection with the industry, acting as auditor to several gas
companies. He was one of the founders of the Society of Engineers, was a Fellow
of the Chemical Society and the Royal Sanitary Institute, acted as president of
the British Association of Gas Managers (1870), and subsequently joined
the Gas Institute and the Institution of Gas Engineers. He was elected an
Associate of The Institution of Civil Engineers in 1859.
Magnus Ohren married Cecilia Emma Graydon on 7 April 1845
in Bromley-by-Bow and the couple had six children – Augusta Clara Ohren (1848),
who was born when the family were in Hamburg, Geddie Edward Ohren (1851) and
Charles Magnus Ohren (1853), who were both born in Poplar, when their father
was back in the UK, and Rosa Cecilia Ohren (1858), Aubrey Magnus Ohren (1860)
and Catherine Ohren (1862), all born in Sydenham.
Cecilia died on 1
August 1901 , aged 75, and Magnus on 21 March 1907 , aged 85.
Several of their children either worked in the gas
industry or married someone who did.
Augusta Ohren married Alfred Plane Holt, who at one time
was chief cashier at the Crystal Palace District Gas Co.
Geddie Ohren, named after his father’s mentor in Stepney,
was at one time also a gas engineer, working at first at the Crystal Palace
District Gas Co and then in Shrewsbury. He later left the industry, his wife
and children, and his unusual first name – he went to live in Loughborough with
another woman and became a photographer and hairdresser.
Aubrey Ohren was a collector for the Crystal Palace
District Gas Co and then for the South Suburban Gas Co.
Charles
Magnus Ohren
Charles Magnus Ohren was the second son of Magnus and
Cecilia Ohren, born on 15 May 1853
in Poplar. He became an accountant at the Crystal Palace District Gas Co and
later took over from his father as secretary of the company, a role he
continued to perform for the South Suburban Gas Co after the merger in 1904
until about 1912.
In 1875, Charles married Elizabeth Watson (1855-1926), the
daughter of the then manager of the Crystal Palace District Gas Co, James
Watson. The couple had one child, a daughter, Winifred, born 1879, who died
unmarried in 1967.
Charles Magnus Ohren died on 12 May 1920 .
Edmund
Small Cathels
Edmund Small Cathels was born in Scotland Scotland
In the mid 1850s, he worked in Northfleet ,
Kent Co. Here his two
eldest children were born – William McNicol Cathels and Donald Louis Cathels.
Towards the end of the decade, Edmund Cathels was in Dover Dover
By 1861, the family were in Shrewsbury
Also while at Shrewsbury
In 1865, the family moved to Sydenham and Edmund Cathels
became manager of the Crystal Palace District Gas Co. Again Cathels was granted
more patents while with this company – for “improvements in apparatus for
conveying and regulating the supply of gas” and, with David Terrace, for “improvements
in apparatus used in the manufacture of gas, part of which apparatus is also
applicable for ventilating mines, for promoting combustion, and for pumping,
measuring, and forcing fluids”.
Two more children were born in Sydenham – Blinshall
Cathels and Colin Cathels.
Edmund Small Cathels was connected with at least one other
gas company – the Barnet Gas Light & Coke Company – while he was manager at
the Crystal Palace
In 1872, several members of the Cathels family emigrated,
first to Canada USA Montreal
James
Watson
James Watson (1832-1881) was
born in Dundee and his wife Catherine (1830-1893) in
Berwick. By 1855, James was working in Northumberland as the manager and
engineer for the Hexham Gas Works, based at Old Burn
Lane
While the family was living in
Hexham, James and Catherine had three children: Elizabeth (1855-1926), George (1858) and James
(1859-1936).
In 1861/2 the family came south
to Kingston Thames ,
when James was appointed manager of Kingston Gas Works in Lower Ham Road. While
in Kingston
Where James was in 1871 is not
known: the 1871 census has James’s brother – William Clarke Watson – who was
also a gas engineer, living in the house next to the gas works in Lower Ham
Road, together with his own family, including his wife Jane (nee Rankin), whom
William had married in Hexham in 1861.
The three eldest sons of James
and Catherine (George, James and William) were at boarding school in Kingston
In 1872, James took the position of manager of the Crystal
Palace District Gas Co. Three years later, James’s daughter Elizabeth Watson married
Charles Magnus Ohren, the son of the secretary of the company.
By 1878, James Watson had left
the Crystal Palace District Gas Co and in 1881, James and Catherine Watson were
in Herne Bay , Kent Crystal
Palace
James died in Herne
Bay
By 1891, James Clarke Watson was foreman of the Crystal
Palace District Gas Co’s works in South End Lane
Charles
Gandon
Charles Gandon was born in Whitechapel, in 1837, the son
of a cooper, Jonas Gandon.
Charles Gandon began his career by assisting in construction
of gas works in Germany
In 1861, he was described as a civil engineer and married
Emma Knight, the daughter of a printer.
Charles and Emma Gandon travelled extensively as Charles’s
work took him round the world. Their journey can be followed through the births
of their children: their eldest, John Gandon, was born in Peterborough in 1862;
Emma Gandon (1865) and Herbert Gandon (1867) in Smyrna, Turkey; Florence (1869)
Hackney; Maud (1872) in Bombay, India; Harold Gandon (1873) in Islington; and
then Reginald Gandon (1877) and Philip Gandon (1879) in Sydenham.
In Smyrna Bombay England
The link with Smyrna
Charles Gandon was manager of the Crystal Palace District
Gas Co for 20 years from 1877 to 1897. He died in 1902.
Sydney
Yarrell Shoubridge
Sydney Yarrell Shoubridge was born on 9 February 1852 in Clapham, the son of an artist
and architect, William Shoubridge.
In 1871 Sydney Shoubridge was a mechanical engineer
working in Middlesborough, but by 1876 he was superintendent of the gas works in
Duddeston Mill Road
In 1883, while he
was in Warwickshire, he married Mary Matilda White and the couple’s first
child, Mary Gladys Shoubridge, was born there in 1885.
By 1888, Sydney Shoubridge had become engineer and manager
of Salford Co-operative Gas Co, a position he still held in 1895, when the
family lived at Inglewood Minton
Road
Two more children were born while the couple were in
Eccles – Sydney Cyril Shoubridge (1888) who died in infancy, and Lucy Dora
Shoubridge (1891).
In 1897, Sydney Shoubridge was appointed manager of the
Crystal Palace District Gas Co and he retained that position after the merger
with South Suburban Gas Co until at least 1919.
He died in Eastbourne in 1926,
leaving an estate of over £17,500.
The
Share Scheme
In 1894, the year after Charles Ohren took over from his
father as secretary of the Crystal Palace District Gas Co, the company
introduced an employee bonus share scheme, but it did not encourage any
improvement in productivity and the scheme was revised in 1897.
