Samuel Clegg

Who was Samuel Clegg?

Samuel Clegg was a British civil engineer.

Clegg was born at Manchester on 2 March 1781, received a scientific education under the care of Dr. Dalton. He was then apprenticed to Boulton and Watt, and at the Soho Manufactory witnessed many of William Murdoch's earlier experiments in the use of coal gas. He profited so well by his residence there that he was soon engaged by Mr. Henry Lodge to adapt the new lighting system to his cotton mills at Sowerby Bridge, near Halifax; and finding the necessity for some simpler method of purifying the gas, he invented the lime purifiers.

After removing to London, he lighted in 1813 with gas the establishment of Mr. Rudolph Ackermann, printseller, 101 Strand. Here his success was so pronounced that it brought him prominently forward, and in the following year he became the engineer of the Chartered Gas Company. He made many unsuccessful attempts to construct a dry meter which would register satisfactorily; but in 1815 and again in 1818 he patented a water meter, — the basis of all the subsequent improvements in the method of measuring gas.