William Murdoch is credited with the invention of gas lighting. In his mid twenties he is said to have walked from Ayrshire to Birmingham to seekemployment at James Watt and Matthew Boulton`s famous Soho works. 

He gained employment there ( one apocryphal story says that the nervous Murdoch dropped his top hat whilst being interviewed by Boulton , on hearing the hat drop Boulton found on closer inspection that Murdoch`s hat had been made on a lathe!. 

It is said this prompted Boulton to offer Murdoch a job immediately) and went on to contribute significantly and can be said to have been the first in Britain to construct and use a steam powered road going vehicle. 

This was in 1785 while he was in Redruth , Cornwall, sent there by the company to look after their steam engines that they supplied to the tin mining industry. Apparently Murdoch wanted to mount his steam driven "car" on rails , but was dissuaded by his company on the grounds that moving engines didn`t have a future!!!!!. 

Gas lighting is what Murdoch is known for though , and by 1795 he had managed to light his house in Redruth with this method . Seven years later his company used gas lighting outside their factory in Birmingham . By 1813 Westminster bridge was illuminated by the ingenuity of the boy from Lugar. 

---