Lighting in the Home
 | Kerosene or Coal Oil Lamp, c. 1900
Lamp Oil for kerosene lamps was one of the many products to come from the
refineries in East London. |
A variety of lamps and candles were used for lighting the home in the 19th
century. Wax candles, common before 1850, were made from tallow (fat from
sheep or cattle) and were usually formed in a mold. By 1860, most
commercially produced candles were made from paraffin derived from
petroleum, these were more expensive, and the homemade tallow candles likely
remained in use in rural areas.
Oil lamps included the crusie which burned tallow or lard with a wick and
was often placed over the hearth. There were also whale oil lamps, but by
the 1840s this fuel was becoming expensive and alternative lamps that burned
lard (from pigs) were developed.
Then in the 1850s , Abraham Gesner, a geologist in Halifax, discovered a way
to refine a burning oil from coal tar and later from petroleum, a product he
named kerosene (from the Greek keroselaion meaning tar).
In the late 1850s, petroleum reserves discovered in Pennsylvania and Lambton
County could be easily obtained by digging shallow wells. Petroleum
refineries in London were making kerosene, as well as paraffin, for candle
manufacturers and lubricating oil for machinery. Kerosene's low price made
the lamps popular.
A plant that made illuminating gas from coal opened in London in the 1850s
and supplied, first, street lighting and later, lighting for homes, public
halls and stores. Outside of the cities though, the kerosene lamp burned on
until rural electrification in the 1920s and 30s.
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