William Murdoch started to become known as an engineer at Matthew Boulton and James Watts Soho Works in Birmingham, where he began work in 1777. He went to Cornwall two years later, an area where many of Boulton and Watt's steam engines were being used in the mines. He stayed there for the next 20 years and made some of his most well known discoveries there.

His early pioneering work in high pressure steam locomotion was stopped because Boulton and Watt wanted him to concentrate on their mining engines. These early ideas were only 're-discovered' 20 years later when Richard Trevithick carried out similar work on steam engines.

William Murdoch's original gasholder, first used for coal gas c1798

Courtesy of The National Gas Archive