My mother's written recollections of life in her childhood in the early 1900s told of her grandmother who was very poor and who lived in a much smaller and older house which had no gas. Its only lighting was by candle and an oil lamp which stood in the centre of her table.
An intact antique oil lamp. photographed at the Willis Museum, Basingstoke. This is a particularly elegant lamp from a wealthy house. The one that my mother describes had a frosted glass globe instead of the pink 'shell' shade and the brass was almost certainly plain rather than decorated.
My mother wrote that in the morning when daylight came, her grandmother would check the wick of the oil lamp and trim off the charred top with scissors. Next she would top up the oil. Then she would wash the globe with soap and water using a wash leather, and then polish it with a duster. If there were any sooty smears left, she would polish it again and again. This was to make sure that the lamp gave out as much light as possible.
I wanted to know more about the oil lamps that my great grandmother had used. There was no shortage of them in museums, but they seemed either broken, or with parts missing or arranged so that the internal workings were hidden. I am grateful to Bill Hogg and my cousin Anne Davey (born Anne Cole) for their explanations of the various parts of the lamps and their functions. All the photos, apart from the one with the shade, were taken from Anne's own collection. Her lamps are originals, and the brass gleams like reproduction lamps simply because she polishes it regularly with metal polish.
My mother wrote of her grandmother's lamp having a 'globe'. This would have been a frosted glass lampshade to spread the light, but I have been unable to find such a lamp to photograph. (Anne reports that her largest lamp did have a globe shade originally but that it got broken.) However, the photo on the right of the pink 'shell' shade shows the idea.
The oil was paraffin oil of the sort that my mother wrote of as being sold in the oil shop. At the base of any oil lamp was a container to hold the oil and there was a wick - often a double wick - that was almost entirely submerged in the oil. Just a couple of millimetres or so would be supported above the surface. These wicks were thicker and wider than the wicks of candles, and were bought in quite long lengths. The photograph below of a double-wick dismantled lamp shows the wicks clearly.
Looking down on part of a dismantled oil lamp with two wicks, showing the support that held the wicks such that short lengths were kept above the surface of the oil. The wicks are shown trailing underneath. In a reassembled lamp they would be loosely coiled in the oil.
The oil seeped up the wicks (or wick) into the short parts above the surface of the oil and was set alight with a spill or a match. The oil then burnt and the flame gave off a bright light.
A simple plain brass oil lamp without its frosted glass globe shade, which had been broken.
For safety reasons and to create a steadier flame - and therefore a steadier light - there was a glass 'chimney' for the flame.
As wicks inevitably got charred and had to be trimmed to prevent the flames giving off too much sooty smoke, lamps were made with a lever to raise the mechanism. These levers are shown on the left of the first three photos. On the right are screws to wind the wicks up for trimming and down for use.
Small antique oil lamps of the sort used for carrying up to a bedroom.
The lamps in the final photo are small ones of the sort that would be used for taking into a bedroom rather than lighting a living room. They probably never had shades.
I understand that oil lamps were the main source of lighting in rural areas up until the 1930s when the National Grid brought them electricity.
If you have an old photo which would illustrate the way of life that my mother describes, I would very much appreciate a copy. Pat Cryer
This page is about lighting with oil lamps in old Victorian and Edwardian houses. It describes the parts of the lamp and explains how they worked.