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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Lancashire => Topic started by: jeanc on Sunday 15 April 18 16:16 BST (UK)
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I know below is an odd request, it's something a friend and I have been wondering about and hopefully there is someone who can let us know of following.
When the gas meter was emptied of its pennies, rolled up into paper and placed in the collectors Gladstone bag, what happened to the money collected, was it upto the collector to deposit in a bank or take it to the gas company?
Looking forward to any thoughts on this.
Best regards.
JeanC
Liverpool UK
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I would think he probably took it back to the Gas company :-\
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When the gas industry was nationalised 1 April 1949, there were 1,062 privately owned and municipal gas companies in existence. These were replaced with 12 area gas boards.
Hard to say if all 1,062 followed the same procedure?
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The Burnley Express, 9 Mar 1946, describes the collection procedure of Burnley Corporation's prepayment meter collectors in relation to a court case. The cash was handed in each evening with the cash collection slips for checking.
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I assumed it would have been similar to local authority rent collecting which I remember in the 1960's was taken back to the office and 'balanced' by the collector before being passed to the cashiers to be banked with other takings.
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Thank you both Rosie99 and Hanes teulu for your replies, from what you have sent, I'm assuming the gas supplied in Liverpool (where we are dealing with) was possible supplied by the Liverpool Corporation. I can remember the collector calling to our house, this would be mid 1940, at the time never gave a thought to what happened to the money he took away. I should think he would'not have his own transport back then, so he would have had to use public transport, with what would have been a very heavy bag at the end of the day. I'm now going to see if there is any further information to be found on where the money went to. The suggestion of taking it to an office similar to the rent office makes sense.
Regards
JeanC
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From a 1914 court case
"The 'slot', or prepayment meter, collector paid into the secretary's office, during the period from July 25th through to September 22nd, £1,022 11s 2d. The cash receipt book showed only £520 as having been received during that period, and no more than this amount had been paid into the bank"
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A Victorian gas bill.
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Thank you hanes teule and GR2 for the information sent.
Regards
JeanC
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Not sure which bit of the "1900s" you're looking at but, from the 1960's, the collector took the money to the bank. This was the case with NW gas but I can't be sure about other parts of the UK. If the bank had closed - and they closed early in pre-computer days - the collector took it home and banked it the next morning.
A security risk by today's standards but you won't get that far carrying a bag full of shilling coins!
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Thank you Ray T, my friend and I were thinking of any of 1900s when cash would have been collected from meters. We had thought of it being banked, but wasn't sure, we were talking about how heavy the bag would have been. Maybe there were more than one visit to the bank in a day, especially when the meters took the old copper pennies, as they were quite heavy. How times have changed, in some cases, not even a human being taking the readings.
Regards
JeanC
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If you check the job advertisements for "prepayment meter collectors" they included such requirements as "must be fit", "must be strong", "must be able to ride a bicycle". Women began to be recruited at the start of WWI.
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Wow, thank you hanes teulu, you have answered another query as we weren't sure if the collector had a bike or not.
Regards.
JeanC
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Wow, thank you hanes teulu, you have answered another query as we weren't sure if the collector had a bike or not.
Regards.
JeanC
My late father used the bus or walked but penny meters had been phased out by the time he started the job. By the time he finished, in 1983, he drove a van and supervised a gang of collectors meeting up with them to take the money and hand out more work.
Nostalgia simply isn't what it used to be! (Actually it was thought to be a disease suffered by sailors away from home for months/years at a time.)
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Thank you again Ray T, all the information I have received, it's making a picture of how the meter collectors did their work etc.
In my case that disease of Nostaiga is never far away. LOL
Regards.
JeanC