author

Owen Merriman

Best known for a lively late-19th-century book on gas lighting, this writer turns industrial history into something surprisingly readable. His work follows the evolution of gas burners with the eye of a practical explainer and a real curiosity about how everyday technology improves.

1 Audiobook

Gas Burners Old and New

Gas Burners Old and New

by Owen Merriman

About the author

Owen Merriman is known from the 1884 book Gas Burners Old and New: A Historical and Descriptive Treatise on the Progress of Invention in Gas Lighting, Embracing an Account of the Theory of Luminous Combustion. The book was reprinted from the Journal of Gas Lighting and published in London by Walter King.

In that work, Merriman traces the development of gas burners and explains the principles behind luminous combustion. The tone is technical but accessible, and the book clearly aims to help ordinary readers understand a technology that shaped everyday life in the 19th century.

Very little biographical information about Merriman could be confirmed from reliable sources available during this search, so it is safest to remember him through his writing: as a clear, practical author who helped document the history and mechanics of gas lighting.