He was a constant attendant at the Exchange Coffee House, the established resort of the Bristol merchants.

"He had the good fortune at one time to win a considerable prize in the lottery, and often looked in at the insurance offices, where he sometimes received premiums as an underwriter of ships and cargoes." In consequence, he obtained much patronage, and always inserted at the head of the playbills of his benefit, "By desire of several eminent merchants." Garrick, in 1765, after his return from Italy (according to Jackson's "History of the Scottish Stage"), introduced various improvements in the theatre, and amongst them, the employment of a row of foot-lights in lieu of the old circular chandeliers over head.

The labours of the candle-snuffers in front of the curtain were probably brought to a conclusion soon afterwards, when oil-lamps took the place of candles.
The snuffer then found his occupation gone.

Probably the trimming of the lamps became his next duty; and then, as time went on, he developed into a "gasman," that most indispensable attendant of the modern theatre.
Thackeray, in his novel of "The Virginians," has some very apposite remarks upon the limited state of illumination in which our ancestors were content to dwell.

"In speaking of the past," he writes, "I think the night-life of society a hundred years since was rather a _dark_ life.