During this period, the British Gas industry was runing as it had been for the previous hundred years. Rather than a national picture gas was manufactured and supplied to consumers by a series of private and municipally operated gas companies. The industry was fragmented.

The 1948 Gas Act changed the nature of the industry completely, creating a nationalised gas industry throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

The Act came into effect in May 1949 creating sweeping changes. In excess of 1000 privately owned and municipal gas companies were merged into twelve area gas boards. Each of these area boards were autonomous with their own chairman and board structure. In the local regions these area boards were known as “the gas board”, a term which some people still use when referring to British Gas in the modern era.

In addition to the above, the Gas Council was established to act as a link between the area boards and the government Ministry of Fuel and Power. The Gas Council was made up of the 12 area board chairmen and also had a chairman of its own, Sir Edgar Sylvester.
During this period the use of gas continued to grow and to encourage this it wass promoted through high street showrooms. Strangely, for the modern reader, in 1953 the Womens Gas Federation was founded. Its purpose was to provide a social forum for women where the use of gas in the home could be promoted.

The forerunner of the North Sea development started in Holland with an Esso/Shell survey discovering an enormous natural gas field. Also at the end of the decade in 1959 the first trial imports of liquefied natural gas arrived in Britain from Louisiana. This was ultimately to decline in importance but then rise again when the North Sea gasfield production started to decline in the 21st century.