Dominion Meter Works, Gas Meter

Credit LineGift of Ross Parker, Mill Bay, British Columbia, 2018.

Object number2018.020.001

Label TextThis Dominion Meter Works gas meter was removed from a London home. John S. Moore Dominion Meter Works was established in 1879. Moore ran the office out of his home at 328 Wortley Road and the works was located at 1 to 11 Garfield Avenue. This is the first piece Museum London has been offered to illustrate this London business. The piece is interesting because customers would deposit coins into the meter, to turn on a measured amount of gas. T. S. Lacey received a patent for prepayment meters in 1870. Later improvements were introduced by Thomas Glower (1902 and 1906) and others in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This type of gas meter allowed less well-off households to pay for gas as they could afford it. Prepayment coin meters, like the one offered here, were first introduced in 1887 to enable the gas industry to compete with oil and candles. It is so constructed that when a coin is inserted in the slot of the meter, gas could be consumed to the value of the coins inserted. Coin meters therefore enabled those on a low wage to pay for supplies as money was available. Coin meters were ideally suited to the social and economic conditions in which they were introduced,

NameMeter, Gas