| AD |
1st - 17th Century |
| 100 |
Streets of Fontaine Ardent, near Grenoble, France, lit with natural gas (in place for centuries). |
| 400 |
Streets of Antioch and Jerusalem lit at night; probably by bonfires. |
| 825 |
Saxon Chronicle makes first note of coal in England. |
| 900 |
Approximate time of Arab street paving and street lighting, by oil, at Cordoba, Spain. |
| c.1000 |
Coal begins to replace wood and charcoal as preferred fuel in Britain. |
| 1180 |
First systematic mining of coal in the British Isles, as fuel. |
| 1259 |
Henry III grants Royal Charter for mining of coal at Newcastle, England. |
| 1200's |
Oil lamps illuminate Madonnas at Paris crossroads. |
| 1306 |
Dense coal smog at London; Parliament complains to Edward III. |
| 1316 |
Royal proclamation against use of coal in London as a "noisome smell." |
| 1325 |
English coal exchanged for French corn, in sailing ships. |
| 1330 |
Monks of Tynemouth Priory selling coal from their colliery, to those who would come to extract such. |
| 1414 |
Rudimentary street lighting, by oil, at London. |
| 1490 |
Cast iron coal and wood-fuel cooking stoves introduced in the Alsace. |
| 1509 |
Cast iron box stoves introduced at Ilsenburg (now Saxony-Anhalt), historic German iron foundry. |
| 1524 |
Rudimentary street lighting, by oil, in place at Paris. |
| 1541 |
Paracelsus discovers hydrogen gas. |
| 1558 |
Paris, France, inaugurates main boulevard lighting with large metal tar pitch pots. |
| 1580 |
Queen Elizabeth prohibits use of coal at London, while Parliament is in session. |
| 1608 |
Beginning of American chemical industry when British send eight Poles and Germans to Jamestown, Virginia, to make tar, pitch, glass and soap. |
| 1609 |
Belgian chemist van Helmont discovers artificial gas, by fermentation and combustion; Names it geist (ghost). |
| 1620 |
Sir William St. John receives first English patent for the bee-hive coke oven, to convert coal to smokeless fuel. |
| 1622 |
French missionaries discover Native Americans igniting natural gas in NW New York State. |
| 1654 |
Robert Boyle experiments with illuminating gas generated by fermentation of organic matter. |
| c.1654 |
Sir Thomas Shirley discovers natural gas issuing from groundwater spring at Wigan, England. |
| 1658 |
Thomas Shirley reads a paper before British Royal Society on experiments with natural gas issuing from geologic outcrop near Wigan, later seat of the vast gas-coal beds. |
| c.1659 |
Rev. Dean John Clayton, British clergyman of Kildare, prepares gas from bituminous coal of Wigan, collects such in animal bladders and ignites such to amuse friends. |
| 1662 |
Robert Boyle announces Boyle's Law of Gasses. |
| 1667 |
Charles II initiates Hearth Tax on fireplaces, in response to widespread use of coal for heating. |
| 1669 |
Shirley writes of his gas generation and illumination experiments in Trans. of Royal Society. Streets of Paris lit by candles set in glass boxes, by Royal decree. |
| 1672 |
Hague, Netherlands, has illuminated streets; probably by oil. Hamburg, Germany, has illuminated streets; probably by oil. Nicolas Denys, French explorer with rights from Louis XIV, publishing at Paris, describes coals on the island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. |
| 1675 |
Coal is distilled to produce tar; No further details. |
| 1679 |
Jesuit explorer Father Hennepin reports existence of coal in Illinois . Berlin has oil-fired street lamps. |
| 1681 |
First British patent on generation of coal gas; To Johann J. Becher and Henry Serle for "a new way of makeing pitch and tarre out of pit coale, never before found out or used by any other. |
| 1684 |
John Clayton experiments with natural gas at Sir Thomas Shirley's gas spring. |
| 1694 |
City of London places oil street lamps before every tenth house. |
| 17th Cent. |
Coke was known as "charked coal" |
