Gas workers c.1915 at the 1904 Gas Works in Station Road

Gas Works, Ely

History of the Gas Works

The Ely Gas Company set up a gas works in 1835. Gas manufacture stopped in 1958.

According to Audrey Denton, Recollections of Old Ely, the Ely Gas and Electricity Co. was set up by George Molam of Spalding. It was sold to London Gas in 1840. By 1880 it was known as the City of Ely Gas Co. It was nationalised in 1949.

The smell of the works was very noticeable but some believed that this was beneficial to those with whooping cough and children were taken for walks near the gas works.

Coal for the works was shipped from Goole on the Humber to the inlet at Annesdale. A by product, Gas Water, was shipped out to Kings Lynn to be used in the manufacture of fertilizer.

During World War II the Air Raid siren operated from the Gas Works. The works also employed two prisoners of war, one german, the other Italian. The Italian would clean the street lamps in Ely.