The man who started to illuminate Barcelona (and Madrid's Puerta del Sol)

On Saint John's Day in 1826, a historic event occurred in the center of Barcelona which, despite its great significance, is not entirely known. Generally, the start of public street lighting is remembered as the moment, in 1843, when the Societat Catalana per a l’Enllumenat per Gas of Pere Gil Babot and Charles Lebon began to operate. But the reality is that a few years earlier, a solitary entrepreneur named Josep Roura Estrada illuminated a building in Barcelona for the first time using gas. The Saint John's Day we mentioned a few lines back was the date chosen by Roura to install a lighting system in the Llotja building, which was the headquarters of the Junta de Comerç school.

Roura's strong technical training was based on his chemistry studies at the University of Montpellier (1820), where he obtained his doctorate. It should be remembered that the University of Barcelona (Estudi General de Barcelona) had been closed in 1717 due to the Decree of Nova Planta and would not be re-established until 1837. Upon returning from his Provençal journey, Roura obtained a professorship at the Military Gymnasium of Barcelona, which was where military personnel acquired engineering training, and shortly thereafter also at the School of Chemistry of the Board of Trade. In 1824, he began working on obtaining an flammable gas from the distillation of coal. He was clear that chemical reactions of that type could generate enough light to illuminate spaces, and for this reason, in 1825, he traveled to Paris to study gas-powered lighting systems. With the lesson learned, he returned to Barcelona, where he became the pioneer in the installation of light in buildings, as we explained at the beginning.

Despite the future his product could have (it illuminated the Puerta del Sol at the request of the Madrid City Council), his interest was more scientific than commercial, and he focused on continuing research in this field. From the thirties onwards, he concentrated on the search for chemical products, so much so that in 1836 he created his own company, which had its plant in the Bordeta neighborhood. However, the various lighting systems he had been installing throughout the city of Barcelona continued to operate for a number of years, until the arrival of the public network of the Catalan Gas Lighting Company (1843). At this time, he was also one of the first to recognize and publicize the great possibilities of coal from the area of Sant Joan de les Abadesses (Ripollès).

He combined on-site research with the development of technical manuals – highly valued by the local academy – on all the technological innovations he discovered on his travels throughout Europe. His activity at the Academy of Natural Sciences and Arts was very intense (he had been a member since 1822) and, as an example, we can recall May 6, 1841, when he brought there a young Italian named Vito Mangiamele, who was a prodigy of mental calculation and who, at only fourteen years old, impressed the academics with his abilities.

As a result of his research activity and chemical business, in 1846 he invented a completely innovative product called white gunpowder. It was more powerful and of higher quality than traditional black gunpowder, which was used by the army. Everything seems to indicate that the tests carried out were very satisfactory, but for some unknown reason the Spanish army refused to acquire it and, in view of this, Roura preferred to put his discovery in a drawer. To this day, it is not known with certainty what the chemical composition of this mysterious white gunpowder was, partly because the last sample preserved by the family was lost in 1988.

In 1851 he was appointed director of the Industrial School, an institution that was inaugurated that same year and which would later evolve into the School of Industrial Engineers. In a way, it was an improved continuation of the schools of the Board of Trade and was located in the former convent of Sant Sebastià. Despite the new responsibilities acquired, Roura continued with his scientific investigations, some for private companies, such as the report he prepared in 1860 for the Compañía Española de Asfaltos. From a political point of view, he was very involved in the tributes received by General Prim upon his return after the wars in Africa, in 1860.