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page5Historic Gas Times%u2022 Issue 112 %u2022 September 2022 %u2022Thomas Glover was a life long gas man, from a talented family of gas engineers, he was born in St. Helen%u2019s, Lancashire in 1862, the son of another Thomas Glover. He became an apprentice at St. Helen%u2019s Gasworks, later becoming deputy manager. He became Assistant Manager at the Carlisle Gas and Water undertaking between 1892 and 1895, before moving to West Bromwich Corporation Gas Department in 1895. It was however at Norwich, where he settled in 1902, and made a lasting impact on his community. He was the Engineer and Manager of the Norwich Station of the British Gas Light Company Ltd, until his retirement in 1929. In his 28 years at Norwich, Glover was credited with completely remodelling the gasworks, which were built on two separate sites. These were St. Martin At Palace works and Bishops Bridge works. Both works were individual gasworks at the time, but Glover sort to improve efficiency. His plan was to change the St. Martin at Palace works to a gas manufacturing site and the Bishops Bridge works to a gas purification, storage, and distribution site. This was a major undertaking without interrupting the gas supply and took 2 years to complete. Glover%u2019s plan double production capacity whilst lowering costsThomas Glover was also an innovator, he experimented with an innovative type of chamber oven at Norwich, which he patented and marketed through Messrs W.J. Jenkins of Retford, it made hard coke for which there was a good market in the green houses of Norfolk for the forcing of fruit.Glover made further extensions at the gasworks between 1920 and 1922, this included the construction of the Glover-West Continuous Vertical Retort House. The Glover West Vertical Retort was a collaboration between Thomas%u2019s Brother, Samuel Glover, the gas engineer at the St. Helen%u2019s Corporation Gasworks and John West, a former gas engineer to the Manchester Corporation who had established the West%u2019s Gas Improvement Company Ltd. in 1884. They had improved an earlier design A GAS MANAGERS UNUSUAL LEGACYThomas Glover%u2019s IGE Presidential Photograph 1909Spent retort fragments and firebrick in the walls of Ketts Heights parks.The two gasholders have a combined capacity is 870,000 cubic feet of gas, though the greatest daily make of the works is 1,100,000 cubic feet.A governor by Braddock, with self-loading apparatus, completes the plant, all of which (with the buildings) was erected by the Company%u2019s own workmen. There is no bye-products plant, as the ammoniacal liquor is sold to be converted into anhydrous ammonia. The tar is used chiefly for road-making purposes. The gas outlet main to the town is 24 inches in diameter, and the mains are laid at an average depth of 2 ft. 6 in.; whereas in Sydney they are 2 feet deep from the surface of the road to the top of the pipe.The illuminating power of the gas is 16 candles; and its price is 4s.-,per 1000 cubic feet. The public lamps are fitted with incandescent burners; and gas is largely used for cooking and for motive power. The consumption increases at the rate of from 10 to 18 per cent.; and, in fact, it has trebled in eight years. A great future for the Company may, therefore, be anticipated with every confidence. Extensions are always going on ; and in the carbonizing department it is probable that the vertical system will be adopted, as labour troubles are so great. Besides this, the formation of the lands and site lends itself admirably to the adoption of verticals.JBH