Discover the history of Gas

The Gas Museum tells the story of the people who made and used gas. Both the industry and its customers have gone through many changes over 200 years. Through it all, gas has been an essential energy source that has touched many lives.

Our Story

Our collection was started by gas engineers when the UK was converted from town gas to natural gas in the 1970s. They found many beautiful old appliances and decided to start a museum. At first this was in the corner of a warehouse. but the East Midlands Gas Board chairman John Doran saw it and decided to create a museum open to everyone. We were originally named the John Doran Museum in honour of his support.

“the largest, most representative and most significant holding of material related to the gas industry, its application and effects upon society, probably anywhere in the world.”

– Science Museum

As the gas industry changed after privatisation, we became a charitable trust and absorbed the collection of the London Gas Museum and the South West Gas Historical Society. We maintain friendly links with the National Gas Archive in Warrington. We focus on objects and they focus on documents.

The museum is a historic gas monument in itself. It is under the clock tower of a Victorian listed building which dates from 1878 when town gas was first made at its site on Aylestone Road in Leicester. It was originally the gatehouse to the gas works and still welcomes visitors to the British Gas and National Grid offices on the site today.

The History of Gas

find out more about he history of gas in Britain, from its origins in the late seventeenth century as little more than a dinner party trick to becoming one of Britain’s and the world’s most important sources of energy.