The
chemical industry is not an easy one to define and describe. There are many different areas which can be
described as chemical and many major Greenwich Industries - for example glass
and linoleum - will have had chemists working for them. As we will see as number of manufactures
derived from the gas industry. There
has also been major chemical research in our area particularly in relation to armament
manufacture and work carried on in the Arsenal.
There were also other industries which could be described as chemical -
for example paint, and maybe soap. All of that will be the subject of later
chapters. To start with maybe the earliest chemical industry in our area there
is the complex on Deptford creek which began with the copperas industry in the
17th century
The
manufacture of copperas was a major industry in Greenwich from at least the
mid-17th century. This is
fundamentally a chemical process and is the start of a complex of chemical
works in the Deptford Creek area and beyond.
Copperas had been known in England from at least since the 14th century
and the numbers of works increased steadily.
Typically works are located near a river side and the Thames Estuary was
a favoured location. The best known, and probably the best documented, were at
Queenborough and Whitstable in Kent.[1] Other works were nearer to Greenwich, for
example, at Blackwall. [2] In
1764 England is said to have been the biggest producer of what was then
called ‘green vitriol’ in Europe.[3]
Copperas
is 'ferrous sulphate heptahydrate', made from the oxidation of iron pyrites. Pyrites was collected from the Kent and Essex
shoreline. Landowners on the estuary employed agents whose 'pickers' gathered
the stones which were sent by barge to Deptford.[4] The stones were put into trenches
covered with rain water and left for several years until the liquid became
concentrated enough to dissolve a boiled egg in three minutes. This liquid was
then boiled to crystallisation. It was then used as a black dye. However, more
strongly heated, it produced 'oil of vitriol' – sulphuric acid.[5]
There
is a much quoted statement made by the nineteenth century chemist, Justus Liebig,
that the commercial prosperity of a country can be measured by its consumption
of sulphuric acid [6]
and more recently as the ‘bedrock of the industrial revolution’.[7] It has been said that in the 16th century “England
had achieved a European reputation for the production of sulphuric acid from
copperas” and “in 1764 it was claimed that England was the principal European
producer making it a major economic asset in terms of export earnings.’[8]
Early
records indicate that the copperas works may have been started in Deptford in
the 17th century by a royalist entrepreneur and slaver called Sir Nicholas
Crispe.[9] In 1640 he had been required to tell
Parliament about his use of 'copperas stones' and in the 1660's, pleaded his
work with copperas as a reason why he should be released from prison. [10] The first reference we have to the Deptford
works is in a plan made of the works in 1674.[11] It
was sited on Deptford Creek and covered the area from the Creek to today's
Creekside stretching slightly north of Creek Road. It appears to have been
leased to Crispe by John Evelyn, or his father- in-law, the previous owner. One
of Crispe’s friends was a Daniel Colwell, who wrote an article about the works
which was published in the Transactions of the newly formed Royal Society.[12]
Slightly
later another copperas works is noted on Deptford Creek. In 1695 s a site on
the Greenwich side of the Creek was said to have been 'lately converted to a
copperas works'. [13] This was at the end of Lamb Lane - roughly on
the line of Bardsley Street and in the area of today's Creek Bridge. A
passage ran from the Greenwich Vicarage garden to 'The Copperas
House' [14] which may have been
'Ravensbourne House' described as ’Tudor’ and which became the home of the
family who owned the works.[15]
Crispe
died in 1666 and the copperas works passed to his grandson and on through the
family. By the 1760's it seems to have been managed, along with other copperas
works elsewhere, by a consortium. All of this changed when a young haberdasher,
Charles Pearson, bought the Greenwich works in the 1770s along with Ravensbourne
House and in 1780 married Elizabeth Radford, heiress to one of the Whitstable
works. Before 1802 he had extended his
control of the industry by taking over other copperas works in Whitstable,
Walton-on-the-Naze and Thames Ditton.[16] The Deptford works then included 'three pieces
of land, garden and wharf as well as 'tenements, manufactory and cottages'. At the Greenwich works there were 'two coach
houses, settling stills, warehouse, crane house, and wharf as well as 'a large
chemical works” and said to have existed , there since the end of the 17th
century'.[17]
In
1825 rate books show, listed next to the copperas works, a site owned by a
William Beneke. He was one of three
brothers involved in this works whose family business in Hamburg was in making
dyes. One of them, Johann, had been caught
up in the French wars and imprisoned in the fortress at Dinan. He escaped and came
to Deptford in 1814 to open a verdigris works.[18] 'Verdigris', also called 'blue vitriol' and
'copper sulphate' was made by interleaving rags soaked in pyroligneous acid
between sheets of copper and used as a green pigment and colouring agent. William Beneke patented such a process in
England in 1846.[19].
In 1836 Johann had been involved in a works at Goslar making sulphuric acid
from pyrites – the same, it is said, as he had done at Deptford [20] -
where his factory was ‘one of the most
highly regarded in England’.[21] The important question here is – was he
making copperas and using that to make sulphuric acid?? Or had he found a more
direct way of producing the acid from pyrites?
In
1828 Johann Beneke left England, leaving William at the Deptford works.[22]
He may have been a member of the Silesian Jewish family who became Hamburg
bankers and were associated with the family of the composer, Felix Bartholdy
Mendelssohn. In 1842 the composer stayed at their home in Denmark Hill [23]and
his daughter married one of their sons. Mendelssohn's son, Paul, became one of
the founders of the German colour company, AGFA, set up in the Berlin suburb of
Rammelsburg, where Johann Beneke had worked in 1828. [24]
North
of the river was another industrial chemist with an interest in new ways of
making sulphuric acid. This was Thomas Hills, based at the Bromley by Bow Steam
Mills, on the site of what is now Bow School.
In 1826 Thomas Hills and Uriah Haddock patented a method of making
sulphuric acid using pyrites in what became known as the chamber process.
Why
we should be interested in Thomas Hills is that by 1840 his son Frank was
renting the Deptford Chemical Works from Frederick Beneke. We will return to
Frank Hills in some detail, but in the meantime there were other things of
interest in Deptford Creek.
John Bennet Lawes came from Rothamsted in
Hertfordshire. At Oxford in 1832, he began to be interested in growing
medicinal plants on his Rothamsted estate. He began to experiment on the
effects of various manures on pot plants and extended these experiments to
field crop. In 1842, he patented manure formed by treating phosphates
with sulphuric acid.[25]
He took a trip down the Thames and then took over the site of the Deptford
copperas works, by then derelict following the bankruptcy of Charles Pearson in
1835. He built there a factory for the manufacture of his super phosphate
manure.
Superphosphate has been described as ‘the first
commercial mineral fertilizer’ which led to the development of the modern plant
nutrient industry. It was once the most commonly used fertilizer.[26] Lawes is however said to have used imported Chilean
pyrites to make his sulphuric acid[27]
and it may be that estuary picked pyrites had already been replaced by Beneke who
is said to have imported ores from Germany.[28]
The Lawes works did not stay in Deptford and a
larger works was set up in Barking Creek in 1857 under different
management. Lawes himself became
involved with a works on the Isle of Dogs manufacturing other acids and
continued to work at Rothampstead [29]
which remains an agricultural research institution. [30]
Another chemical industry was growing around
Deptford Creek in the early 19th century. This is the early gas industry and
although it seems strange to describe it as 'chemical' that is what it was. Gas works in Greenwich have been described in
a different chapter – but one, the railway gas works, was nearby and the more
successful Phoenix on the other side of the Creek. The railway gas works was soon to become an independent
works, apparently financed by Frank Hills[31]. Coal gas manufacture produced a number of
by-products – mainly tar and ammoniacal liquor - which were sold to, and used
by, chemical works. Those on Deptford
Creek were no exception.
The
Benekes were major purchasers of ammoniacal liquor from most of the London
gasworks, [32]including
Phoenix.[33]
They bought having tendered for annual contracts to remove the liquor, usually
by barge. In the early 1930s they rented the ruined Ravensbourne Company works
from Phoenix. [34]
Pearson
too was involved with the gas companies – attending meetings with Phoenix and
acting as an auditor for them. [35]
It is clear he had a close involved with Beneke and in 1833 he offered to
settle Beneke's account with the Hackney based Imperial Gas Company and took
over his contract for ammoniacal liquor supplies. [36]
The
copperas works seemed to have continued until the mid-1830's when the site was
gradually taken up by other users. The new Creek Bridge was built through part
of the site and when Mr Huck, the Greenwich Miser, died having fallen into the
beds, he was pulled out by the bridge workers. [37]
Charles
Pearson died in 1828 worth £27,000 having already left the industry to live in
Maze Hill. Charles Pearson Jnr, although leading a more 'gentlemanly'
existence, tried very hard to diversify. His downfall, and eventual bankruptcy,
was caused by investment in the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway. He died in
1850 apparently leaving nothing. [38]
Johann
Beneke returned to Germany to a career as a distinguished industrial chemist.[39]
William and Frederick Beneke appear to have remained in England along with some
distinguished descendents. [40]
The works was purchased by Frank Hills.
The
Deptford Chemical Works remained in the hands of the Hills family well into the
20th century – and Frank, his brothers and sons
moved on to other things. On Deptford Creek their work was a crucial
step in the development of the manufacture of sulphuric acid, here and
elsewhere.
Frank Hills was a
major and energetic figure in the chemical and gas industries of the later 19th
century. He had two large chemical works
in Greenwich, used as his bases for a large network of factories, many managed
by family members. He was also involved
with local engineering firms and a major shipbuilding works on a riverside site
on the opposite river bank to his Thameside works. He died vastly rich.
When Frank Hills
died in May 1893 his death was not reported beyond notes of two or three lines
in local papers. It was not until 29th July of that year that The Times carried
a report of his will. This unnoticed
south London chemical manufacturer had left a personal fortune £1,942,836, 11s.
11d. When W.D.Rubenstein analysed rich
men of the Victorian era in 1977 he listed only forty between 1809 and 1914 who
left over £2m and only three of these were chemical manufacturers.[41]
Thomas Hills work
and patent on the manufacture of sulphuric acid using pyrites has already been
noted. Thomas, Frank's father, who died in 1837, seems to have been at the
Bromley by Bow steam mill from around 1813 and might have come from Greenwich.[42] A letter from an eight year old Frank written
to family members at Bromley Steam Mill confirms the relationship.[43]
It has also been
noted that in the early 1940s Frank was involved with the manufacture of steam
road vehicles. It was said that he
worked, or at least travelled, with Walter Hancock[44]
and took out a relevant patent[45]
for gearing as well as having vehicles built for himself and to his
specifications.[46]
Frank was one of
six brothers. One of them, his elder brother Thomas, claimed to be his business
manager and was eventually given a place on the Thames Ironworks Board. In the
1880s he lived at The Grove, on Blackheath.[47]
Another brother, Henry, was living at the Paragon on Blackheath in 1870s[48]
while also managing a large chemical works in Amlych on Angelsea.[49]
Like Frank, he was involved in the Cheshire salt industry.[50]
Other brothers were
involved elsewhere in much the same way, as were their sons. The family owned
mines in Huelva, Spain[51]
as well as in Wales.[52]
In 1842 Frank
bought the East Greenwich Tide Mill[53],
described elsewhere, and set up a large chemical works there to compliment his
Deptford Works. His manager, Mr. Davies, lived at East Lodge on the riverside
with daughters who produced a lively newsletter[54]
about life at the Lodge and holidays in Angelsea. In 1865 special tanks were installed to make
sulphuric acid. Other acids were made on
site- nitric, tartaric and oxalic - as well as dyes. Fertiliser, probably to the Lawes
specification, was made at East Greenwich for this there were two 30-ft long
steam boilers with a chimney as well as an 'Archimedean screw' and a bone
crusher.[55] The
manure was made from 'shoddy', waste leather, dry bones, bone ash and refuse
from sugar bakers - that is whatever organic rubbish could be bought cheaply.
It was then piled up and mixed with sulphuric acid. In 1871 Mr. Pink, the
Medical Officer of Health for Greenwich, gave 'advice' designed for 'abatement
of the nuisance which these works could scarcely have failed to occasion'.[56]
The Deptford works
also continued and Frank is said to have undertaken research there, although he
also employed research staff.[57]
Frank was one of a
group of industrial chemists undertaking research on, and exploitation of gas
industry wastes. There was much legal action between them, as well as rival
patents. One of the biggest problems for
the gas industry in the 19th century was to find a means of
‘purification’ of the raw coal gas. As it came, straight from the retort, it
was not fit to use for lighting purposes and needed to be cleaned. Industrial
chemists began to search for a means of cleaning the gas which would also leave
a residue that could profitably exploit.[58]
Throughout the
1840s and early 1850s these chemists approached the gas companies with offers
of various purifying schemes.[59]
One particular process, using metallic oxides, seems to have been developed in France.
It involved the 'revivification' of the purifying mixture with air, and once
'exhausted' the mixture contained valuable substances that could be
reclaimed. An aggressive campaign to
sell this process to the gas industry was pursued concurrently with a battle
over patent rights. [60]
The Chartered Gas
Company agreed to test the new process at Westminster in August 1849 and
various interested parties came to see what was going on and one of those
present warned the others not to tell Frank Hills about their discovery because
'he will put it in his patent'.[61]
Hills, of course, put in a patent application which he registered in November
1849. Evans and Laming took out a joint patent in April 1850 but Frank Hills
had got there first.
After 1849 the gas
companies began to prefer to use the process which Laming had demonstrated at
the Westminster Gas Works. Frank Hills insisted that this was his patent. Any
gas company that wanted to use it had to have a licence from him to do so. If they did not have his licence, he simply
sued them. Gas companies were sometimes supplied with the purifying mixture to
put in their machines for which they had to pay per ton of coal
carbonised. The chemical manufacturers
removed the spent oxide when it could no longer be revivified and took to be
used in their chemical works. Frank
Hills processed vast amounts at his Deptford and Greenwich works recovering
ammonia and sulphur.
Later some gas
company took to the law and heard a series of complicated statements on patent
law and chemistry - 'arguments which
were almost certainly beyond the understanding of the jury, and, one suspects,
of counsel and judge as well'.[62]
The gas companies began to get together and as the time drew nearer for his
1849 patent to expire, Frank Hills announced that he was going to apply for an
extension of it and a consortium of gas companies went to the Privy Council. He
had however made a vast amount of money.
In the 1870s Frank
Hills bought into the, then failing, Thames Ironworks – the premier shipyard in
Britain. This outside our remit – on the north bank of the river, although very
visible from the East Greenwich Chemical Works.
Frank chaired it for over twenty years and his son Arnold saw this great
shipyard go out of business.[63]
[1] Allen, Cotterill and Pike. Copperas.
[2] Ephraim Seehl with a works in Robin Hood Lane, Blackwall. LBTH Deed collection
[3][3] Allen, Cotterill and Pike.
[4] Sir John Hayward. Accounts. KCC Archive
[5] Campbell, The Chemical Industry
[6] Lebeig. Chemical Letters 1843
[7] http://sciencenordic.com/sulphuric-acid-was-bedrock-industrial-revolution
[8] Allen, Cotterell & Pike
[9] DNB. This is the Royalist who was based in Hammersmith. Another branch of the Crispe family was based at Quex in Kent with copperas interests at Stonar. (Goodsall. Arch. Cant lxx)
[10] Evelyn papers. Extracts KCC archive & British Library
[11] Surrey County Record Office. Hagen Collection
[12] Colwell. An account of the way of making English green copperas. Phil. Trans Royal Society 1678
[13] Metcalf Estate Plan. GHC
[14] Kimbell. Greenwich Charities
[15] Elizabeth Pearson’s Diary
[16] Info Mrs. Walsh, Pearson descendant. Allen, Cotterill & Pike.
[17] Greenwich St.Alfege. Ratebook.
[18] Neuer Nekrolog der Deustchen
[19] Repertory of Patent Inventions 1846. He also patented a process for making spelter (zinc)
[20] Allegeinen Deustchen Biographie
[21] Neuer Nekrolog
[22] Neuer Nekrolog
[23] Green. Dulwich
[24] Wikipedia.
Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy. There
are also numerous histories of the German chemical industry on the web which
give details of his role in setting up AGFA.
[25] DNB
[26] http://www.cropnutrition.com/single-superphosphate
[27] Allen, Cotterill & Pike
[28] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/ADB:Beneke,_Johann_Heinrich_Friedrich
[29] Morris and Russell. Archives of the British Chemical Industry.
[30] https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/
[31] Journal of Gas Lighting 10th August 1853
[32] ie Independent Gas Co. DMins 6th December 1827. City Gas Co.DMins. 7th June 1828.
[33] Phoenix Gas Co. Dmins 6th June 1827
[34] Phoenix Gas Co. DMins 27th October 1830
[35] Elizabeth Pearson Diary
[36] Imperial Gas Co. Dmins. 10th July 1833
[37] Greenwich papers. BL
[38] Info. Mrs. Walsh
[39] Neuer Nekrolog
[40] Beneke family history web site.
[41] Rubenstein. Victorian Middle-Classes' Economic History Review, V..30, 1977
[42] St. Alfege Poor Rate 1810 note 'London Street. Thomas Hills for house, sheds, and stable £20'.
[43] Letter in the possession of Mr. Humphries, Dinant. The letter is probably dated 1815 and obviously written by a child on squared paper.
[44] Fletcher. Steam on Common Roads .
[45] Patent 8495, 5th May 1840, Frank Clarke Hills, 'Construction of steam boilers and engines and locomotive carriages'
[46] Mechs. Mag.Vo1.XXXIII No.886. 1st August 1840/. Also illustrations owned by the late Patrick Hills
[47] Census. 1881. The Grove is the area at the top of Crooms Hill.
[48] Census 1871
[49] Hope. A Curious Place
[50] Standard Newspaper 7/3/1859
[51] Info late Patrick Hills. The area is now part of the Rio Tinto Mining Park. http://www.andalucia.com/province/huelva/riotintominingpark/home.htm.
[52] On Angelsea but also at Berwyn and elsewhere. Davies. Metaliferous Minerals and Mining
[53] The finance seems to have been part of his marriage settlement. Info Mr. Humphries
[54] Thanks to Mrs.Wagstaffe for copies of the ‘Four Wheeler’ and information,
[55] Ellis & Co, papers. Info.. Mr. Humphries
[56] E. Ballard, Edward, Report on the alleged nuisance Local Government Board, nd,
[57] Co-partnership Journal 1916
[58] Bowditch. Analysis, Technical Valuation, Purification, and Use of Coal Gas
[59] These episodes can be followed through the minute books of many gas companies. I have described the process in detail in my Early East London Gas Industry and its Waste Products
[60] Detailed in my Early East London Gas Industry. Farrar, Richard Laming, Ann.Sci., 1969, V.25
[61] Farrar. Richard Laming
[62] Detailed in my Early East London Gas Industry. Farrar. Richard Laming
[63] There are many histories of Thames Ironworks – not the least because of their involvement with West Ham Football Club. Grace’s Guide would be a start
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