Item BLO/5/4 - The future of the gas industry

Harold Edgar Bloor trained as an engineer, and spent his career specialising in gas services. He joined York Gas Company, and wrote a report and recommendations for the reconstruction of the York gas works in 1913. By August 1940 he was listed as a Director.

Bloor also held a number of appointments outside of York Gas Company during his working life. In 1919 he was elected President of the North of England Gas Managers Association, by 1924 he was a consulting engineer for Driffield gas works, and in 1931 he was an arbitrator for the gas sector. He was a member of the Gas Council, and Chairman of Minster Engineering in the late 1920s and 1930s. Bloor was elected Chairman of the Yorkshire Joint Tar Board and Tar Producers Committee, and was a member of the Benzole Committee in the 1940s.

Bloor was also an inventor, and took out a large number of patents for various new inventions throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He had also invented a means of humidification using domestic heating apparatus in 1933.

Aside from his working life, Bloor was a shareholder and Director of the York Citizens Theatre Trust, set up to run the Theatre Royal; a Director of M A Craven and Son Ltd and Governor of the Merchant Adventurers in 1945/1946. He was also involved in his local Rotary Club. He held voluntary positions in both World Wars – he was a Temporary Captain in the Volunteer Force in the First World War (he held his position in the West Riding Motor Volunteer Corps, No. 4 Group), and became a Fire Guard in 1941.

Bloor wrote and presented extensively throughout his life, including on the effects of the First World War on the gas industry. He presented to school children and adults. His date of death is unknown.