Gas Light and Coke Company War Memorial Lamp. Photo: the London Lamplighters.
This War Memorial’s eternal light is maintained by our friends, the London Lamplighters, the service and repair engineers who maintain the capital’s remaining 1,500 historic gas lamps. They tend the light and the memorial as it commemorates their predecessors, the many employees of the Gas Light & Coke Company, killed in both world wars.
The Grade II-listed gas light is set on a Portland Stone column and evokes the history of the Gas Light and Coke Company, and its employees who died. The company, the first of its type in the world, made and supplied coal gas and coke. The coal gas was used for lighting. In existence from 1813 – 1937, the company absorbed many smaller concerns and is the organisation from which British Gas plc, who the London Lamplighters work for, is descended.
The memorial lamp whose flame is tended by the London Lamplighters. Photo: the London Lamplighters.
Unveiled in 1922, the tall octagonal lamp has an iron and glass frame. It is set on a stone base, which once held two bronze plaques commemorating the hundreds of dead. The setting included ceramic tiles with the company’s arms which feature a pair of fire-breathing salamanders. The Memorial Lamp plaques that were attached were stolen in 2026/2007.
The stolen WWI plaque listing 549 names read:
THESE MEN DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY / 1914-1919 / THE GAS LIGHT AND COKE COMPANY.
The stolen WWII plaque bearing 402 names read:
TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE MEMBERS OF THE / COMPANY WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE WAR / OF 1939-45 / REQUIESCANT IN PACE
When replacements for the stolen plaques were made, they were attached to the current memorial.
Gas Light and Coke Memorial WWI. Photo: The London Lamplighters.
Gas Light and Coke Memorial WWII plaque. Photo: The London Lamplighters.
The Memorial Lamp stands beside a Grade II-listed rotunda constructed after WWII with Corinthian columns with an embellished frieze. At the centre of the rotunda is a stone block bearing two plaques, one for each of the world wars.
Rotunda beside the Gas Light and Coke Company War Memorial Lamp. Photo: Jim Osley CC by SA 2.0
The column and lamp were originally located at Beckton but later moved to Bromley-by-Bow, also in the East of London, when the gas works closed. Bromley-by-Bow Gasworks was built in 1870 to 1873. There was a gas works on Bow Creek, on the east bank of the River Lea, from the 1870s. Ships and barges brought coal into the gasworks and took coke and by-products out. The site at Bromley-by-Bow closed in 1976, and the impressive Bromley-by-Bow gasholders were listed at Grade II in 1984, and were placed on the Society’s Top Ten Endangered Buildings list in 2018. The gasholders form the largest group of Victorian gasholders known to remain in the world. The seven gasholders are all Grade II-listed and described by Historic England as “among the most aesthetically distinguished and finely detailed gasholders ever built…” A developer secured planning permission to redevelop the gasworks in 2025.
The London Lamplighters hope to raise funds to repair and restore the Gas Light and Coke Company War Memorial and its lamp.
London Lamplighters wreath-laying at the Gas Light and Coke Company War Memorial lamp. Photo: London Lamplighters.
‘The Last Post’ is traditionally played on a bugle in the UK, particularly at Remembrance Sunday services. It is a short military bugle call, originally used to signal the end of the day’s duties in the British Army.
