[2] The company was founded by Frederick Albert Winsor, who was originally from Germany,[3] and incorporated by royal charter on 30 April 1812 under the seal of King George III.

[4] Under the company's chief engineer, Samuel Clegg (formerly of Boulton and Watt), a gas works was installed at the Royal Mint in 1817 and by 1819 nearly 290 miles of pipes had been laid in London, supplying 51,000 burners.

[4] In 1948 the GLCC supplied an area of 547 square miles from Egham in Surrey, Pinner in North West London to Southend-on-Sea in Essex.

[1] The vast 550 acres (220 ha) not only gave the GLCC room for much more gas production than at Nine Elms, but was downriver of the Pool of London and so could be served by significantly larger colliers.

In 1872, five men were gaoled for 12 months following a strike at the Beckton works in support of two workers sacked for requesting a pay rise.

The company grew to supply Acton, Ealing, Hanwell, Southall, Heston, Twickenham and Barnes.

It received legal powers in 1868 to build a new works at Southall on the Grand Union Canal as the Brentford site was said to be too cramped for development.

Nevertheless, the Brentford site remained in use and was redesigned and rebuilt in 1935 with Intermittent Vertical Retorts after a study of the Pintsch-Otto plant in Germany; and a polygonal MAN waterless gasometer was built.

[8] The Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company spent £300,000 on the works on Bow Creek at Bromley-by-Bow which was "obsolescent in design and not yet in sight of completion" in 1875.

The company was amalgamated with the GLCC in 1876 but the Bromley works was still considered to be a "vast white elephant" because the coaling arrangements on Bow Creek were unsatisfactory.

[20] The Imperial Gasworks' neoclassical office building was completed in 1857[21] and a laboratory designed by the architect Sir Walter Tapper was added in 1927.

[20][21][22] Coal was delivered by flatiron coastal colliers, which had a low-profile superstructure, hinged funnel and masts in order to pass under bridges upriver from the Pool of London.

[25] The gasworks at Shoreditch was another venture by the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company, constructed adjacent to the Regents Canal in 1822.

Coal was supplied to Southall works via the Grand Union Canal and the Great Western Railway.

Although the works at Staines was considered to be small it was kept as it was able to meet local requirements at an extremity of the GLCC's grid.

[30][31] The house flag was white with a red rising sun in the centre and the initials "G L C Co." in blue capitals distributed around the four corners.

[31] SS Lanterna was a 1,685 GRT collier built in 1882 by the Tyne Iron Shipbuilding Co. of Willington Quay, Howdon, Tyneside.

[35] SS Snilesworth was a 2,220 GRT collier that Short Brothers had built in 1889 for John Tulley and Sons of Sunderland.

[38] SS Universal was a 1,274 GRT collier built in 1878 by Short Brothers for the Taylor and Sanderson Steam Ship Co of Sunderland.

[39] SS Magnus Mail was a 2,299 GRT cargo ship built in 1889 by Short Brothers for J. Westoll of Sunderland.

[47] The GLCC bought her in 1921 to supply Beckton gas works and Regents Canal Dock.

[50] SS Suntrap was a 939 GRT flatiron built in 1929 by Hawthorn Leslie and Company of Hebburn on Tyneside.

[51] On nationalisation in 1949 she passed to North Thames Gas Board, who in 1954 sold her to the Ouse Steam Ship Company, who renamed her Sunfleet.

[48] On nationalisation in 1949 she passed to North Thames Gas Board, who in 1958 sold her to Greek owners who renamed her Papeira M and registered her in Panama.

[48][54] On 17 October 1940 the E-boat S-27 torpedoed her in the North Sea off Smith's Knoll east of Great Yarmouth.

[23] Austin rebuilt her stern (increasing her GRT to 3,001) and in May 1941 she returned to service, but on 21 June 1941 a mine sank her in the North Sea 11 miles east of Southwold.

[48] SS Adams Beck was a 2,816 GRT collier built in 1941 by the Burntisland Shipbuilding Company of Fife.

[56][57] She was launched in April 1941 and completed in June, but on 29 July enemy aircraft attacked and sank her in the Tyne estuary,[56] killing one member of the crew.

[56] The torpedo blew off Firelight's bow but she remained afloat and put into Great Yarmouth the next day.

SS Firebeam was a 1,554 GRT collier launched in 1945 by Hall, Russell & Company of Aberdeen, who built her under contract to Burntisland Shipbuilding.