When Webb died in 1883, the bright incandescent gas mantles were very uncommon indeed. In fact, they'd only just been invented, as a riposte to the growing competition from the electric light bulb, and the prevalent method of gas lighting was the batswing burner, which spread the gas flame out like it says on the tin, and which were horribly dangerous by modern standards. These lights were still in use in my mother's childhood, in the early 1920s.

There were many Methodist and other nonconformist chapels in almost all areas- very often small corrugated iron churches which arose, flourished, and vanished without leaving a trace. There's a preserved example of one at the Blist's Hill industrial museum, along with the only remaining stretch of the very canal that Webb travelled along- he had to face a rope- worked incline (also partly preserved) to get up from the river Severn, but having swum the Atlantic to get there, he doubtless found it only a minor problem.

As for the mineral line, no doubt the man "running" it was driving something like this engine, made at Lilleshall at the far end of the canal some fifteen years before Webb's death. Easily handled by one man, with perhaps a boy to help him.