242 REPORT — 1861. 



directors had to be chosen, unaltered. The governing body was not composed of a 

 limited number of persons chosen as representatives, out was constituted of all the 

 inhabitants who paid a rent of £20 a year. Under such a system it was clear that 

 whenever there was a strong collision of opinion on public questions, persons on 

 both sides would qualify in such numbers as utterly to destroy the deliberative 

 character of the public meetings that might be held. In the proceedings, both with 

 respect to gas and other public affairs, that took place for years after the passing of 

 this Act, so great was the excitement that prevailed, that crowds of qualitied inha- 

 bitants became Commissioners of Police ; and for a long period the meetings that 

 were held were characterized by the most disgi-acefid turbulence and disorder. At 

 one meeting alone, in 1827, no less than 665 persons qualified as commissioners. 

 At these meetings the most extravagant propositions were brought forward, such 

 as, for instance, that gas should be supplied to consumers at cost price. The par- 

 ties most prominent and offensive in this violent agitation were chiefly the lowest 

 class of shopkeepers and publicans. Then followed an agitation for the sale of the 



fasworks; but this was eventually suspended by the appointment of the late 

 [r. Thomas Wroe to the comptrollership of the works. This was quite an epoch 

 in the history of the works. In the first year, Mr. Wroe reduced the price 5 per 

 cent., and raised the production from 88 millions of cubic feet to 96 millions, or 

 9 per cent., and increased the profits from £10,200 to £13,500, or 34 per cent. In 

 the ten years that Mr. Wroe was connected with the works he reduced the price 

 fi'om 10s. 6d. to OS. 9d., and raised the annual profit from £10,200 to £31,700. The 

 benefit derived by the town from Mr. Wroe's services amounted to an annual sum 

 of £45,416. This was stated in a report of the Finance Committee, bearing date 

 August 22, 1842, which he thought ought to be published for general circulation, 

 as it contained particulars of the services of one who had not yet had justice dona 

 to his unparalleled work as a public sen^ant. 



For the introduction of the Municipal Corporations Act to Manchester they were 

 indebted to Mr. Alderman Neild, who originated the movement, and was imtiring 

 in his exertions until it was accomplished. The Municipal Act, among its many 

 other advantages, gave a secm-ity and permanence to the gas establishment which 

 it could not be considered to possess previously. The consequences had been highly 

 important. To the inhabitants it had supplied the best and cheapest light that 

 exists. To the public at large it had contributed regularly fmids for widening old 

 and forming new streets to an extent that had afforded needfid accommodation for 

 the vast increase of traffic, of population, and merchandize that had grown up among 

 them, and which, without such aid, would probably have been actually prevented 

 by the want of space in the streets and thoroughfares, which was essential to its 

 existence. In both social and political economy, facility of communication and 

 transit was one of the most important elements of national prosperity, and demanded 

 imceasing attention to every available means for securing it. In this respect the 

 Manchester gasworks had been especially useful. Before their establishment it 

 was the standing and universal reproach of Manchester that it was the worst and 

 most inconveniently built town in Europe. It possessed no fund for general im- 

 provements, and was so rapidly increasing as to make from day to day the neces- 

 sity of such a fund more alarmingly appai'ent. Without the fimds derived from the 

 gasworks, the physical necessity of wider and shorter streets would either have put 

 a stop to the gi-owth of the traffic, or have rendered absolutely imperative a resort 

 to large improvement rates, thus not only most injuriously affecting the value of 

 property throughout the town, but also checking and depressing all other interests. 

 Sucn were the exigencies of the town in this respect, that at a meeting of the Com- 

 missioners of Police in 1827, a scheme of necessaiy improvements to meet the 

 rapidly advancing wants of the commimity was brought forward, which involved an 

 estimated cost of fi-om one to one and a half million sterling. He thought it was a 

 happy circumstance for Manchester in a threatened necessity of such vital import- 

 ance to its prosperity, that a fund existed in the profits of the gasworks of sufficient 

 magnitude to equal the demand. That these estimates were not overrated was clear 

 from the fact that, in addition to improvements still in progress and still wanted, 

 the payments from the gas profits for the pm-poses then contemplated have amounted 

 to more than £700,000, besides debts incun-ed that were yet owing. In the first 

 year of the establishment of the gasworks the profits amoxmted to £263 10s. 5d, In 



