The technology of gas, electricity and trams in the nineteenth century allowed economies of scale in production and delivery over a spatially limited area. It is argued here that the initial developments were dominated by the private sector but that the pace of expansion thereafter was not affected decisively one way or the other by whether the utilities remained in private ownership or were taken over by municipalities. It is also argued that an ideological commitment to municipal socialism was not the prime determinant of the ownership pattern. Rather, it was the set of fiscal problems facing local authorities. These issues will be illustrated initially by the case of gas and water, which have a longer history than electricity and trams, which we will consider later.

Gas was produced from coking coal and was used initially for lighting, later for heat and power. It could be stored only for short periods and was expensive to transport. Here was a technology that yielded small local networks, most effective when each undertaking supplied one densely populated urban area. Not until the second half of the twentieth century, and especially with the discovery of deposits of natural gas, was there a real push for regional and national grids. This simple setting nonetheless demonstrates some of the central puzzles of public ownership at the local level in the nineteenth century.