Some 120 years before the Flanders and Swan ballad was written, the gas man did indeed come to Chesterfield for the very first time, in the person of Joseph Bower, a man born in 1780 in Wingerworth. He was a coppersmith, ironmonger and brazier, with premises in Chesterfield Market Place. He never sought fame but unintentionally found it, as Tony Hallam reveals.
IN THE TOWN IN 1823, a local committee was established for promoting the establishment of gas, but failed to get parliamentary authorisation to light the town in this manner…