South Eastern Gas Board

When the regional gas and electricity companies were nationalised 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.