South Eastern Gas Board

The records consist of a number of Portage Bills and disbursement accounts, 1959 to 1970; a file of the case histories of casualties; certificates issued by Lloyds for engines and boilers, freeboard, anchors and chain cables and classification: a series of Chief Officers' and Chief Engineers' log books, 1961 to 1970: and specification plans and technical data, 1925 to 1959. In addition there is an extensive photographic record of the fleet and a number of charts, surveys of wharves and ships' plans.

Administrative / biographical background
When the regional gas and electricity companies were nationalized in 1949, the South Eastern Gas Board (SEGAS) emerged as a fusion of the South Metropolitan Gas Company and the Wandsworth and District Gas Company. Both these companies had transported coal from the North East Coast in their own ships to their own wharves in the Thames since the first decade of the twentieth century, and their combined fleets at the time of the merger totalled twelve ships of gross tonnages ranging between 1,500 and 2,700 tons. These vessels came to be known as 'flatirons' because, in order to negotiate the Thames bridges, they had to have either retractable or very low funnels and a 'low profile'. The change-over from coal to natural gas led to the phasing out of the SEGAS fleet in 1971.