The idea was ridiculed by Sir Humphry Davy, who asked one of the projectors if he intended to take the dome of St.Paul's for a gasometer! Sir Waiter Scott made many clever jokes about those who proposed to "send light through the streets in pipes;" and even Wollaston, a well known man of science, declared that they "might as well attempt to light London with a slice from the moon." It has been so with all new projects--with the steamboat, the locomotive, and the electric telegraph.

As John Wilkinson said of the first vessel of iron which he introduced, "it will be only a nine days' wonder, and afterwards a Columbus's egg." On the 25th of February, 1808, Murdock read a paper before the Royal Society "On the Application of Gas from Coal to economical purposes." He gave a history of the origin and progress of his experiments, down to the time when he had satisfactorily lit up the premises of Phillips and Lee at Manchester.

The paper was modest and unassuming, like everything he did.
It concluded:--"I believe I may, without presuming too much, claim both the first idea of applying, and the first application of this gas to economical purposes."[9] The Royal Society awarded Murdock their large Rumford Gold Medal for his communication.
In the following year a German named Wintzer, or Winsor, appeared as the promotor of a scheme for obtaining a royal charter with extensive privileges, and applied for powers to form a joint-stock company to light part of London and Westminster with gas.

Winsor claimed for his method of gas manufacture that it was more efficacious and profitable than any then known or practised.

The profits, indeed, were to be prodigious.