The National Gas Congress and Exhibition was held in the International Exhibition Halls,

Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

from 1 October to 1 November 1913. The exhibition displayed examples of the best gas fittings of the day in mock rooms representing a large and a small town house, "unusually" mixing manufacturers' products in the spaces rather than having individual trade stands for competing companies. The exhibition catalogue guides the visitor around the seven halls detailing all of the gas powered objects on show. These included

oven upA double oven A ceramic oven An oven is a tool which is used to expose materials to a hot environment. Ovens contain a hollow chamber and provide a means of heating the chamber in a controlled way. In use since antiquity, they have been use ...

s, cookers,

toaster A toaster is a small electric appliance that uses radiant heat to brown sliced bread into toast. Types Pop-up toaster In pop-up or automatic toasters, a single vertical piece of bread is dropped into a slot on the top of the toaste ...

s, tea boilers, irons, fires, radiators,

towel A towel is a piece of absorbent cloth or paper used for drying or wiping a surface. Towels draw moisture through direct contact. In households, several types of towels are used, such as hand towels, bath towels, and kitchen towels. Paper towels ...

rails,

cigar A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaves made to be smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct components: the filler, the binder l ...

lighters, and a wide variety of lights including lamps, table lamps, pendents. The event was targeted at promoting gas to "... all classes of visitor - the practical housewife and the housewife-to-be; the chemist; the technical; the factory owner; the social worker; the artisan; the domestic servant; the doctor; the architect - in short all who need artificial warmth, light or power; and to those whom they look for guidance as to how best to obtain those necessaries of life." Conferences and lectures were run by experts to explain various aspects of Gas to non-technical visitors in order to make "... subjects as well as objects of interest...." Demonstrations of cookery using gas ran every day of the exhibition and members of the public were invited to participate in competitions for monetary prizes of 10 shillings for first prize or £2 for competitions sending in dishes prepared at home, whilst every competitor received 2 or 5 shillings to cover their travel expenses. The catalogue also advertises a competition to write an essay on " - from the Housewife's point of view, or the advantages of cooking by Gas - from the Cook's point of view", with a maximum prize of £10 and a similar competition for children to write about what they learned about gas at the exhibition.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:National Gas Congress And Exhibition (1913) History of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Trade fairs in the United Kingdom 1913 in London 1913 in the United Kingdom