The struggle for supremacy : being a series of chapters in the history of the leblanc alkali industry in Great Britain online

o

C/J



THE STRUGGLE

FOR

SUPREMACY.



gEING A SERIES OF CHAPTERS IN THE
HISTORY OF THE LEBLANC ALKALI
INDUSTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN.



LIVERPOOL:
GILBERT G. WALMSLEY, PRINTER, 50, LORD STREET.

1907.



TO THE READER.



THESE chapters upon the vicissitudes of one
of the staple British industries appeared,
under the title of

"THE STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY,"

in Ije Opines of November 2nd, gth, I2th, I4th,
igth, 2ist and 26th, in the year 1906, and
were written by a representative of that news-
paper after a close personal investigation of
the Mines, Works, Processes and Products of
THE UNITED ALKALI COMPANY LIMITED.



THE design on the front cover is reproduced
from a Medal struck to celebrate the erection,
by international subscription, of a statue to
Nicholas Leblanc in the Museum of Arts and
Crafts in Paris, the unveiling of which took
place on the 28th of June, 1887, practically
one century after the discovery of the process
which bears his name.



A2



974261



CONTENTS.



PAGE.

CHAPTER I. THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF A

THOUSAND INDUSTRIES - 7



II. THE RISE OF THE ALKALI

INDUSTRY 16

III. WEALTH FROM WASTE - - - 25
IV. THROUGH DARKEST DAYS - - 34
,, V. FORTIFYING THE POSITION - 43

,, VI. THE FARM, THE MINE, THE

HOSPITAL AND ALKALI - - 52

,, VII. To MAINTAIN THE SUPREMACY 63

LIST OF AWARDS MADE TO, AND PRODUCTS
MANUFACTURED BY, THE UNITED ALKALI
COMPANY LIMITED - - - - ... 76



CHAPTER I.

THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF A THOUSAND
INDUSTRIES.



WHEN Lord Beaconsfield (then Mr. Disraeli)
declared that the commercial prosperity of
a country could be well gauged by the condition
of the chemical trade, he was not only uttering
one of those epigrammatic phrases for which he
was famous, but also stating a fact of supreme
importance. The extent to which the other great
staple industries of this country depend, in some
way or other, upon the soda -products of the
Alkali Works is not easily realised by those to
whom the subject is unfamiliar. The great textile
industry, for instance, summons them to its aid at
almost every stage in the manufacture of calico
and other fabrics. Without them the process of
bleaching would probably still be conducted in the
old-fashioned expensive way, that is, by exposure
of the pieces to sunlight and air.

Until bleaching powder was invented by Mr.
Chas. Tennant, in 1799, and manufactured for
over a century by him and his successors at
St. Rollox, Glasgow (now one of the constituent
works of THE UNITED ALKALI COMPANY), it was



8 THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF

customary to send goods requiring to be bleached
to Holland or Germany, where a period of many
months elapsed before the operation was complete.
Now the same operation can be effected in a
few hours. In the more recent invention of
"mercerising," by which a silky sheen is imparted
to cotton fabrics, the caustic soda of the alkali
works is a necessary agent. The calico printing
and glazing industry is yet another instance of
dependence upon the products of the Alkali
Works. Again, woollen textiles are, in their initial
processes, indebted to the alkali-makers for the
materials for cleansing and scouring the fleeces.
The bleaching of animal matter, such as wool or
silk, cannot be performed by bleaching powder,
but must be effected by the fumes of burning
sulphur, another valuable product of the works
of THE UNITED ALKALI COMPANY. The great
majority of textiles are dyed with colouring
matters which cannot be produced without the
aid of alkali, and the discovery and manufacture
of the modern dyes form one of the most romantic
stories in the history of the chemical industry. For
the most part, the interesting and very profitable
business of dye manufacture is conducted in
Germany, and the way in which this delicate and
highly-ingenious branch of scientific industry has
been driven abroad, and almost crushed out of
existence in this country by the inequality of our
Patent Laws, and by certain other legislative
restrictions, as well as by culpable ignorance in
our places of higher education, will be discussed



A THOUSAND INDUSTRIES. g

in a later chapter. Meanwhile, it may be said
that these disabling and hampering restrictions
have been lately partially removed, our Patent
Laws have been recently somewhat amended, and
the opportunities for the highest scientific training
vastly improved, though they still fall short of
those of our commercial rivals.

The industrial battle is not yet waged upon a
fair field with no favour, but the British Chemical
Trade is at all events, not quite so heavily
handicapped in its own country, and in its home
markets as it was even six years ago.

The great textile industries are seen to have a
close connexion with the alkali producers, but
there are other staple trades even more dependent
upon cheap soda than those above cited. Soap
and glass cannot be manufactured without the aid
of alkali in one or other of its forms, whilst all
modern paper works are consumers of soda
products, to the extent of some thousands of tons
per annum. We could, no doubt, clothe ourselves
in unbleached, unglazed, and unprinted calico, and
even in undyed woollen garments, and still rub
along quite comfortably. But without alkali, soap
and glass would be impossible, and paper would
be a luxury only obtainable by the rich. The
universal use of soap is of comparatively recent
growth. It has, of course, been known for
generations that a weak lye (made by extracting
the alkali from wood ashes) when boiled with fatty
matter, would yield a soft soap. But this crudely
prepared material was formerly subject in this



io THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF

country to a heavy Excise duty of from id. to 3d.
per Ib. This impost, only repealed in 1853,
naturally restricted the use of a substance which
is now regarded as one of the prime necessities of
life, and the phrase "the great unwashed" may
have once had a greater significance than it
possesses to-day. Cheap alkali means cheap
soap, and anything therefore that tends to
economical production of the former is reflected
in the price of the latter, and hence (it is to be
hoped) in the moral character of the consumers ;
for as some one has wittily said, " if cleanliness is
next to godliness, then soap must be considered
as a means of grace."

If the use of soap be credited with some
measure of power in the elevation of the general
standard of living, then glass is equally deserving
of a share of credit in the uplifting of the artistic
feeling of a nation. Glass is a touchstone of
culture. Nothing is more indicative of refined
taste in a household than the nature and quality
of the glass vessels in daily use. There is an
exquisite charm in finely cut glass which is not
even approached by gold and silver. Its crystalline
sparkle adds a refinement of real but intangible
character to a meal which may be far from
elaborate. The eye and the sense of touch, and
even the palate are all gratified by the bright
and delicate material which serves equally for
adornment as for use. No wine tastes so good
from any earthen or metal vessel as from a goblet
of thin, transparent, shimmering glass.



A THOUSAND INDUSTRIES. n

Boots might as readily be made without leather
as glass without alkali. The kindred industry of
porcelain manufacture offers another instance of
reliance upon the alkali maker for most of its finer
productions. The glazes and enamels of the
highest phases of the ceramic art depend upon the
chemical combination of the silica in the clay with
the soda of the alkali.

Agriculture is rapidly becoming a branch of
chemical science, and the soil is now largely
regarded by scientific men as merely a vehicle for
the conveyance to the plant of artifically prepared
nutrition. THE UNITED ALKALI COMPANY
manufactures enormous quantities of fertilizers
whose relation to the production of alkali will be
dealt with in its proper place.

It is scarcely possible to touch upon any
industry which is independent of alkaline products.
The tanner, for example, who for ages has soaked
his raw hides in lime to detach the hair or wool,
now finds that sulphide of sodium performs the
same function in a fraction of the time required
by the more ancient process.

Since the introduction of the treatment of the
"tailings" in the South African gold mines by the
"cyanide process," a great demand has sprung up
for the cyanide of sodium which has the remarkable
power of dissolving gold. The finely-divided state
of the gold in the blanket ore raised from the
Transvaal mines, resulted in much loss of the
precious metal when treated by the usual
methods. The above-named process has rendered



12 THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF

it possible, however, to extract practically the
whole of the gold without sensible loss. The
unexpected demand, since 1887, for this poisonous
cyanide, which was formerly little more than a
laboratory reagent prepared in trifling quantities,
has stimulated the inventive powers of all modern
chemists, and, in the battle of brains and technical
skill, it is gratifying to know that a remarkably
successful process for the preparation, on a vast
commercial scale, of this deadly but useful poison
has been worked out in the central laboratory of
THE UNITED ALKALI COMPANY at Widnes, and
patented by its inventors, and that this process is
now recognised as one of the most economical
methods hitherto devised of preparing "cyanide."
Further details of this latest stroke in the industrial
duel will be. given in a future chapter.

In every home the products of the Alkali
Works find a place. The most familiar substance
in daily use is, perhaps, the crystalline carbonate
of soda, known as " washing soda." Every
scullerymaid is acquainted with this cheap and
useful article as an essential in cleansing greasy
vessels, or in washing soiled fabrics in which the
dirt is deeply engrained. "Soda" has also the
effect of "softening" very hard water, and it is
now an indispensable requisite in all households.
Though the individual purchases may appear
small, the total weight of soda crystals manu-
factured and sold in 1905 by THE UNITED ALKALI
COMPANY amounted to about one-half the total
quantity manufactured in the United Kingdom.



A THOUSAND INDUSTRIES. 13

Extract of soap, or dry soap, so extensively used
for rougher scouring purposes, contains a large
proportion of " soda ash " (that is the same material
as the crystals, but in the form of a desiccated
powder), whilst the popular "cleansers," for
polishing pots and pans, contain a considerable
quantity of caustic alkali.

In baking powder, and in the familiar " bi-
carbonate of soda" used in production cf carbonic
acid gas for aerated waters, the product of the
alkali manufacturer comes again very closely into
daily life. The washing "blue" employed in every
laundry, to correct the yellow tinge which boiled
linen is apt to assume, is another product of
the Alkali Works. This artificial and soluble
ultramarine is merely a compound of soda ash,
saltcake, sulphur and clay, subjected to the action
of great heat. Large quantities of this extra-
ordinary chemical product are consumed by the
paper manufacturers, who need it for exactly the
same purpose as the washerwoman, viz., to
neutralise the yellowish colour of their materials,
and thus give the optical effect of whiteness.
Even sugar refiners are known to secure the same
end by the same means. Again, the "water"
paints now in such common use for covering walls
and other extensive surfaces contain a silicate of
soda manufactured in very large quantities by
THE UNITED ALKALI COMPANY at their works at
Widnes and Newcastle.

The photographer when he employs his
"hypo" in such lavish quantities lays the Alkali



14 THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF

Works under contribution, and has them to thank
for the economical methods whereby the production
of this useful substance has been rendered so
cheap as to bring it within the reach of the
humblest amateur.

The science of medicine relies, perhaps even
too much, upon the chemists, and the compounds
in which bicarbonate of soda is present, form no
small part of the contents of the battery of bottles
upon a druggist's shelves.

In other branches of chemical industry, in
the manufacture of metallic aluminium, in the
preparation of dyes, paints, and other colouring
matters, explosives, disinfectants, enamels, &c.,
alkali, in one form or another, in an essential
ingredient. In fact, it is not too much to say that
the use of alkali is co-extensive with the area of
commercial activity. When one reflects that the
raw materials from which all the products of the
many works of this great company are prepared
are nothing more than limestone, clay, salt, coal,
and low-grade copper ore rich in sulphur, it will at
once be seen that an immense amount of inventive
ingenuity must have been expended to create
great and complex industries out of the chemical
interchanges possible amongst such rough and
seemingly unpromising materials. These raw
substances are not in the monopoly of any one
country; they are found almost everywhere. It
is open to the whole world to engage in the
manufacture of alkali, and as it is of such universal
use there is a market for it everywhere. This



A THOUSAND INDUSTRIES. 15

country has a rich heritage. No other nation has
produced such a wealth of inventive genius in the
domain of industrial achievement. It is, therefore,
interesting to know that in the struggle for
supremacy in the alkali trade the apparatus and
the processes invented by our countrymen have,
with very few exceptions, set the standard for the
rest of the world, just as truly as in the textile and
engineering trades. Cheap alkali is a prime
necessity. Dear alkali means dearer soap, dearer
glass, dearer calico, and a rise in the cost of a
thousand other products. The industrial battle
in which the brains and skill of the manufacturing
chemists of this country are being pitted against
those of our commercial rivals in the preparation
of this all important product, the raw material of
so many other industries, though the scene of
conflict is amongst the unsavoury chemical works
of the Mersey, the Tyne, and the Clyde, possesses
a lively interest, and even a romance, for all those
to whom the industrial welfare of this country
closely appeals.



CHAPTER II.
THE RISE OF THE ALKALI INDUSTRY.

IN the year 1806, in dire poverty, there perished
miserably by his own hand, a man to whose
genius one of the greatest of the industries of this
country stands as an imperishable monument.
This man was Nicholas Leblanc, who, according
to the Encyclopedia Britannica was private surgeon
to the Due d'Orleans. In 1775, Leblanc, who
was then only 22 years of age, was attracted by
the prize of 2,400 livres (about ^100) offered by
the French Academy of Sciences for a practical
means of converting common salt into soda.
Though little more than an apothecary, Leblanc
had greedily imbibed the scanty chemical know-
ledge of his time, and thirsted for conquests of his
own in that recently discovered domain. Modern
chemistry dates from thi discovery of oxygen,
and when Leblanc began his researches, this
discovery (made almost simultaneously in England
by Priestley of Birmingham, and in Sweden by
Scheele) was barely two years old. The French



THE RISE OF THE ALKALI INDUSTRY. 17

nobleman, Lavoisier, director of the government
gunpowder factories, who perished later at the
guillotine during the Reign of Terror, had just
examined this newly-discovered body, and had
given to it the name by which it was henceforth
to be known Oxygen. In 1774, Scheele further
announced to the world his illustrious discovery of
chlorine, which, in the cumbersome nomenclature
of the time, he designated "dephlogisticated
marine acid air," and he showed that this body
was one of the constituents of common salt.

The Academy of Sciences had long suspected
that natural alkali and common salt had some
element in common, a theory which later research
has proved to be true. Hence the offer of so
valuable a prize for some practical means of
turning salt into "soda." The uses of alkali,
described in the last chapter, were so important,
even as far back as the eighteenth century, that
some means of cheapening its production were
eagerly sought for, as large quantities were required
in the manufacture of glass and soap, paper, and
.glazes for porcelain, &c.

The alkali "soda" is the magical agent by
the operation of which things common, and even
despised, such as rags, wood, sand and animal fats
are converted into substances of the highest value
in daily and domestic life. The ancients, probably,
did not know soda in other than its native mineral
forms, and, until Leblanc's time, the alkali now
known as potash was the more abundant and
generally used substance. This alkaline agent



i8 THE RISE OF THE ALKALI INDUSTRY.

was obtained by the evaporation of water in which
wood ashes (pot-ashes) had been boiled. The
early chemists had not realised that there was any
intrinsic difference between the two alkalies, and
they spoke of them indifferently as Natron, Nitrum r
Kali, Alkali and Soda, names simply meaning a
fixed alkali. It is now known that soda and potash
are the hydroxides of two strangely similar metals
sodium and potassium. Gradual destruction of
the forests made potash scarce just when the
population of Europe was increasing, and the
demand for paper, glass, soap, porcelain, &c., was
growing beyond the means of production. Hence
the government of Louis XVI. offered the prize
above named.

In Leblanc's time one of the chief sources of
alkali was from the ashes of seaweeds. By the
incineration of these plants a residue was obtained
which contained about 50 per cent, of alkali
(sodium carbonate), and the preparation and sale
of this crude "barilla" formed a considerable
industry on many sea coasts, especially round
the Mediterranean. On the western shores of
Scotland and Ireland for generations it was also
the custom of the peasantry to collect the weed
cast up by the winter storms, to burn it, and send
the ashes to Glasgow, there to have the alkali and
the still more valuable iodine extracted.

The trade in barilla with this country is now
practically extinguished, though as late as 1834
no less than 12,000 tons of this substance were
shipped to England from Spain alone. But barilla




C/3



C/)



THE RISE OF THE ALKALI INDUSTRY. 19

or vegetable alkali was expensive and impure, and
the supply insufficient for the needs of the trades
and arts dependent upon it.

Therefore the necessity of solving the problem
of how to convert salt into soda. Of salt there
were limitless quantities, and any practical process
by which this substance could be transmuted into
the much desired alkali promised to bring fame
and fortune to its inventor. The chemist of 120
years ago had very few implements with which
to engage upon scientific research. Sulphur and
nitre (saltpetre), with their kindred acids "oil of
vitriol" (sulphuric acid) and "aqua fortis " (nitric
acid) where the chief transmuting reagents known
to 1 8th century chemists. Stills and crucibles
were used, though their expense and imperfect
construction were a constant source of trouble to
the chemist, or alchemist, as he was still frequently
called. Leblanc, led by genius, or by some
marvellous instinct, first treated the common salt
with sulphuric acid. To use modern phraseology,
he thereby decomposed the salt and produced a
sulphate of soda, commercially styled " saltcake."
In this process of decomposition prodigious fumes
are given off, formerly called muriatic acid, but
now always called hydrochloric acid gas, and the
discovery of the enormous but unsuspected value
of this waste product will be referred to later, as it
forms an interesting incident in British chemistry,
well illustrating the principle that to the chemist
there is no such thing as a waste material.
Leblanc's genius is most apparent in the second



B2



20 THE RISE OF THE ALKALI INDUSTRY.

stage of his invention, viz., the turning of saltcake
into soda. He here struck upon an idea which
had excited the admiration of all his followers.
To the saltcake he added charcoal and chalk; and
then by strongly heating the ingredients in a
crucible he succeeded in effecting the desired
transformation. The black mass when cool was
lixiviated, that is, stirred up with water, whereupon
the alkali dissolved out and a heavy, grey, muddy
sediment remained. This sediment, known as
"tank, vat, or alkali waste," is the chief constituent
of the gigantic refuse heaps found near the older
chemical works. In the next chapter it will be
seen how, after innumerable experiments by many
chemists, this "waste product" has been turned
into a source of wealth. The great prize was
never awarded ; for the French Revolution had
already set in, and Leblanc's hopes of prosperity
were blighted. In September, 1791, the National
Assembly granted him a patent for 15 years; but
in 1794 Leblanc was ordered to resign his factory
to the Republic for the general benefit, and for
this he received the miserable compensation of
^160. In 1800 his factory was reconveyed to him,
but in 1806, broken in hope, health, spirit, and
resource, he perished, as above stated.

Leblanc's invention stands distinguished in
the annals of industry, not only as by far the most
important achievement among chemico-industrial
inventions, but also as having been "created
perfect." In the words of a distinguished chemist,
himself a discoverer of high order, the late



THE RISE OF THE ALKALI INDUSTRY. 21

Professor A. W. Hofmann, "all other great
chemical industries have been slowly worked out
by the toil of successive inventors, but Leblanc's
process remains to-day what it was when he first
gave it to the world the best and simplest method
of effecting the most valuable of transformations."
Though innumerable researches have been made
with a view to its improvement, and though the
mechanical means of dealing with the materials
have been vastly improved, and though the by-
products thrown off during the reactions are now
carefully collected and utilised in a way of which
Leblanc never dreamed, the fact remains that his
original instructions are followed out with merely
a few comparatively unimportant modifications.
This ever-memorable discovery of the ingenious
but unfortunate Leblanc, the creator of incalculable
wealth for his fellow-men, is still largely employed,
and for over fifty years no other process for
manufacturing alkali was used in Great Britain.
At the period of Leblanc's invention, there was
a duty in this country of 10 per ton on salt.
During the Napoleonic struggle this was raised
as a war tax to ^"30 per ton, which rate was
continued until 1823, when the duty was repealed.
The year 1823 may, therefore, be considered as
the natal year of the soda industry as a special
manufacture in Great Britain, and the county of
Lancashire has been the first and chief home of
the alkali trade since common salt was relieved of
the burdensome impost. In the self-same year,
Mr. James Muspratt, father of the present



22 THE RISE OF THE ALKALI INDUSTRY.

Vice-Chairman of THE UNITED ALKALI COMPANY,
erected works in Liverpool for the manufacture of
carbonate of soda, where he adopted Leblanc's
process in its entirety.

Until 1872 the Leblanc process of manu-
facturing soda held its own. But the progress of
scientific achievement cannot be stayed, and in
the early "seventies" another and utterly different
method of preparing alkali was developed on a
commercial scale, and has now largely replaced
the older method. This is known as the ammonia-
soda process, associated with the name of the
Belgian engineer, Ernest Solvay. Although it is
sometimes referred to as "the new process," it is
in its inception hardly more modern than that of
Leblanc, the great difference being, as Hofmann
said, that the latter was "created perfect," whilst
the ammonia process has been built up by
accretion of experiment and invention. Solvay,
himself, generously says that the first truly
industrial application of the ammonia process is
due to two London chemists, Messrs. Dyar and
Hemming, who took out a patent in 1838 for
their invention. Somewhat later, the Mr. James
Muspratt above-named, established the ammonia-
soda process in Lancashire, and it may not be
generally known that Henry Deacon, one of the
founders of the Gaskell Deacon Works at Widnes