Note 355 — Chapter XX · Prosperity of Soho—Young Boulton and Watt—The Riots—William Murdock.

Many years later (in 1818), when Murdock was at Manchester for the purpose of starting one of Boulton and Watt’s engines, he was invited, with Mr. William Fairbairn, to dine at Medlock Bank, then at some distance from the lighted part of the town. “It was a dark winter’s night,” writes Mr. Fairbairn, our informant, “and how to reach the house over such bad roads was a question not easily solved. Mr. Murdock, however, fruitful in resources, went to the Gas Works, (then established in Manchester), where he filled a bladder which he had with him, and placing it under his arm like a bagpipe, he discharged through the stem of an old tobacco-pipe a stream of gas which enabled us to walk in safety to Medlock Bank.”