Fashionable shoppers in Regency London could step away from the cold, dark streets into Rudolph Ackermann’s (1764-1834) ‘Repository of Arts’ and be dazzled by his new gas-lighting system, shining down on prints, books, art supplies and a circulating library. As an establishment that boasted attractive displays and a welcoming atmosphere for genteel society, the visibility of the merchandise was imperative. Ackermann, a proponent of the new technology, was one of the first people in London to introduce gas-lighting to his premises, which had arrived at the Repository, located on The Strand, as well as his home and workshop, by 1811. A portrait of Ackermann, held by The National Portrait Gallery, even shows him seated next to a gas lamp.

Ackermann not only loaned and sold books, but also published them, as well as his popular periodical The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions, and Politics. Both books and periodical were known for the extremely high quality of the illustrations they contained, which were often hand-coloured. In 1815, he published Friedrich Accum’s (1769-1838) A practical treatise on gas-light. We hold a first edition of this work in the Devon and Exeter Institution library. The first of seven beautiful, coloured aquatints that it contained featured the gas-lighting apparatus that was used in Ackermann’s own shop. In his 1968 work Art and the Industrial Revolution, Francis D. Klingender called it “one of the most elegant textbooks in the English language”.

Like Ackermann, the book’s author was also a keen proponent of gas-lighting, using his scientific knowledge to explain and promote the new technology. With a background in chemistry, Accum became interested in gas-lighting after witnessing F. A. Winsor’s demonstrations at the Lyric Theatre in 1803 and 1804. When Winsor’s London Gas Light and Coke Company was incorporated in 1810, Accum became the Director.

As well as explaining how it worked and how it could be installed, Accum’s Treatise also aimed to address the concerns that surrounded gas-lighting, arguing for its safety, security and economy. But the book went further than purely arguing for the utility of the lighting. It also appealed to the sense of style of the fashionable elite that frequented Ackermann’s premises; a number of the illustrations showcased elegant light fittings, in the neoclassical and gothic revival styles that were popular during the Regency period.

The Treatise arrived at the Devon and Exeter Institution soon after its publication; a note on the front pastedown tells us that it was donated by a Mr Crockett in 1816. A bill paid to the ‘Gas Company’ appears in the minute book of the Devon and Exeter Institution’s General Committee as early as 7 July 1824; could this book perhaps have influenced the DEI’s decision to introduce gas-lighting to the library? Although crowds had gathered at Exeter’s Guildhall to witness a demonstration of two large gas lamps in 1815, and Fore Street was lit by gas in 1817, on the whole gas lighting does not appear to have been introduced to many museums, galleries and libraries until later on. In their 1853 guide to the establishment and architectural construction of buildings such as these, Papworth and Papworth were still wary of the use of gas in libraries, recommending a system of lighting rooms from the outside, rather than within.

Gas-lighting would have been transformative in the DEI library. In his essay ‘By candlelight: Jane Austen, technology and heritage film’, John Wiltshire discussed how:

‘the whole visual experience of light was changing . . . after the sun went down, the sources of illumination were all forms of the flame, living things that needed to be continually tended, fed by the wick or the oil, creatures that ultimately dwindled and died . . . with gas, and then electricity, light became brighter, steadier, a taken-for-granted, publicly supplied background to life after dark’.

In the midst of winter, when little natural light is reaching into the library through the windows in our two large cupolas, we can forget how easy it is to flick the light switches. Accum’s book is an important step in the journey that took us to this point, and a reminder of how much everyday life has changed over the last few centuries.

We know that this book has been enjoyed by readers in the library over the last 200 years. It’s now in poor condition and in desperate need of conservation work. If you are able to, please consider donating for its restoration work as part of our ‘Rescue a Book’ scheme.

 

Sonia Llewellyn, Librarian

 

Sources available to view in the DEI library:

Friedrich Accum, A practical treatise on gas-light, (1815). Classmark J 50.1

Richard Luscombe, The commercial history of the gas industry in Exeter from 1816-1914, (1982). Unpublished typescript. Classmark: AD/EXE 665.7 LUS (Pamph.) X

 

Other sources

John Ford, ‘Friedrich Ackermann’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2022), <https://www-oxforddnb-com.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-59?rskey=NyrVCr&result=2> [accessed 13 January 2026]

Brian Gee, ‘Accum, Friedrich Christian’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2008), < https://www-oxforddnb-com.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-56?rskey=stYlns&result=1> [accessed 13 January 2026]

Stephen J. Goldfarb, ‘A Regency gas burner’, in Technology and Culture, Vol.12, No.3, (July 1971), pp.471-476

Maureen McCue and Sophie Thomas (eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Romanticism and the Arts, (2023)

John W. Papworth and Wyatt Papworth, Museums, libraries and picture galleries, public and private; their establishment, formation, arrangement, and architectural construction, (1853)

Geoffrey N. Swinney, ‘Gas lighting in British museums and galleries, with particular reference to the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art’ in Museum management and curatorship, Vol. 18, Iss. 2, (1999), pp.113-143

John Wiltshire, ‘By candlelight: Jane Austen, technology and heritage film’ in David Monaghan, Ariane Hudelet and John Wiltshire (eds.), The cinematic Jane Austen: essays on the filmic sensibility of the novels, (2009), pp.38-56