The British Chemical Industry comes of age

 In the aftermath of WW2, the British Chemical Industry would have been unrecognisable to a time traveller from the 21st century. Plastics were Bakelite, Perspex was for the windscreens of Spitfires and polythene for the insulation of cables for radar. The chemicals required were derived from the fermentation of molasses from sugar beet, most of which was produced by the Distillers Company which had suffered from a decrease in the consumption of whisky after WW1. The textile industry was still dependent on a constant supply of chlorine for bleaching. Fertilisers were being manufactured, but effective pesticides and weedkillers were still very much in the laboratory.

The industry comprised ICI, which had brought together in 1926 the major British manufacturers of explosives, alkali and dyestuffs. There were then Albright & Wilson with a near monopoly of phosphorus, Fisons, and a string of other smaller producers. Laporte was producing Hydrogen Peroxide, then identified as a rocket fuel

Absent were the oil majors. 

In the USA the story was different, for there were plentiful local reserves of oil which Union Carbide explored to find uses for the lighter distillation of crude oil, naphta. They built crackers adjacent to refineries to exploit these gases. Interestingly it was ICI which first made Perspex and polythene using chemicals derived from molasses. The USA could lay claim to nylon, although, again, it was the British in the small Manchester firm of British Calico Printers that produced the first terylene. ICI took this on, given their much larger capacity. 

The British exploitation of chemicals from oil came first during WW2 with the Derby company, British Celanese which built their own cracker to replace the acetate they produced for the manufacturer of rayon. They were followed in the late forties by BP in partnership with Distillers at Grangemouth, Shell at Stanlow and ICI at their vast Wilton complex. 

I write about the early days of the chemical industry in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World which you can buy by following this link . Later years will be covered in the sequel volume.

Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World largely by addressing obstacles to progress

Manchester mills were transporting tons of cotton goods to the port of Liverpool by canal, built by the Duke of Bridgewater, but which took some thirty-six hours and which was expensive. What was needed was a steam railway. 

George Stephenson planned the rail route to Liverpool, which included sixty-four bridges and viaducts along thirty-five miles of track. It was, though, more likely that his son, Robert, designed and built his “Rocket”, ‘by the happy combination of the multitubular boiler and the steamblast, Mr Robert Stephenson succeeded in producing an engine far superior to any previously built in point of speed and efficiency.’ Heavy rails were laid at considerable cost and, with heavier locomotives, ‘the superiority of the railway system to every other mode of conveyance was placed beyond question’. By 1850, the line was carrying two million tons of cotton a year. It also carried passengers to ships leaving Liverpool for the new world with emigrants seeking a new life, in place of their previous cargo of slaves. It was the first twin track line in the world that carried paying passengers and so may rightly lay claim to be the birthplace of modern passenger railways.

Fifty years later damage was being caused to Manchester’s cotton trade by the cost of rail transport and Liverpool dock fees. The answer was to dig a new thirty-five mile long canal from Manchester to the sea. The traditional method of digging, by the employment of many thousand navvies, was simply not viable and so an alternative had to be found and it was, in the shape of Ruston & Proctor of Lincoln. Joseph Ruston had, in 1885, delivered a paper to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Lincoln on his steam navvy, described as being something between a traction engine and a crane. He had impressed, for the Manchester Canal Company engaged seventy-one of these massive machines. He impressed even more when the many machines, buried by flood water in 1890, were soon in full working and returned to work successfully to complete the canal.

You can find more of the story of How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World in my book of the same name available from publishers, Pen & Sword

Textile machinery

 Looking at textiles, where it all began, Bury man, John Kay invented the flying shuttle to be followed by James Hargreaves and the spinning jenny, Richard Arkwright and his water frame and Samuel Crompton’s mule. Famously Arkwright built the first factory. The sewing machine followed from American and, not long after, companies like Hyam & Co of Manchester sold garments from a chain of stores. Hyams were also writ large as advertisers in the catalogue of the Great Exhibition.

Textiles were the product; in time more power was needed - steam!

You can buy How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World from Pen & Sword

10,000 post views

 Thank you everyone for viewing this blog. An exciting time following the publication of How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. Some positive feedback and Amazon have accepted the review post I offered from the foreword to the book:

Podcast on How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World

 Delighted to talk to Stuart Whitehead and Joe Reynolds on the MTDMFG podcast. It was good to dig a little beneath the surface of How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World.

You can listen to the podcast by following this link

My aim in writing HBSMW

Up until the late eighteenth century, Britain was producing just enough goods to meet the needs of its population. Then something changed; the cotton merchants of Lancashire realised that they could produce massively more, and export it. This rapid increase in production kick-started the movement we call the Industrial Revolution. Half a century later, Britain celebrated its great achievement in the full view of the world at a Great Exhibition in London’s Hyde Park. 

May the hundred years that followed, up to the Festival of Britain in 1951, rightly be called the glorious century of British Manufacturing?

Much that is good, which we made in that century, has been made available to the wider world: the steam and jet engines,  railways, radar, rubber tyres and antibiotics. We in turn have much to thank other peoples for: the Flemish for teaching weaving, the French and Germans for the internal combustion engine. There is much to celebrate and be proud of, but it would be wrong to ignore the bad chapters: much of the early revolution was built on slavery and dreadful working conditions for our great-great grandparents. 

Other countries may now be manufacturing more,  but Britain was where it all started, where ideas became inventions, and, indeed still do; where hard working and talented people made their mark. It is a cause for celebration. 

All around the country it is possible to visit restored mills and museums dedicated to industries with strong echoes from those times. Many names will linger in the memory from childhood. But where did they come from and where have they gone? This book aims to offer a glimpse of their story.

The Flying Scotsman

You can buy How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World at Pen & Sword, on Amazon and at WH Smith.

 

HBSMW synopsis by chapter

The Great Exhibition of 1851 celebrated over seventy years of British manufacturing built on invention and hard work, but also slavery and harsh working conditions. A century later, the Festival of Britain pointed to a future of peace built on creativity. They are part of the same story.

In the mid eighteenth century, Britain, like other European nations, was essentially a subsistence economy prospering and declining in line with uncertain harvests. There were a few people growing wealthy on trade with far-away places, but it was still wealth in land that ruled. Then something happened; merchants, who had imported wonderful cotton textiles from India, realised that they could make vastly more money by importing raw cotton and using local labour and the benign climatic conditions of the northwest to spin and weave in Britain. This ignited a process which we now know as the Industrial revolution.

The Great Exhibition showed off its fruits: textiles and textile machinery, steam engines and sewing machines, railway locomotives and steam powered ships, and telegraph apparatus. My great grandfather was there with the surgical instruments his business made. Charlotte Bronte wrote of her visit.

There followed a century of even greater invention: bicycles, electric motors and generating machinery; internal combustion engines powering land based vehicles, ships and aircraft; tin cans, refrigeration and radio; antibiotics, anaesthetics and nylon.

The Crimean War and the two World Wars created a vast armaments industry, but left this country broke and in debt. 

In 1951, an impoverished nation celebrated again with the Festival of Britain, and showed the world the wonderful creativity of the British people, offering hope for a better future.

This book seeks to celebrate British manufacturing, telling its story whilst keeping rose tinted spectacles at bay.

 1. A Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace

An exploration of the names of exhibitors, whence they came and where they went. My great grandfather was there with Surgical Instruments.

2. Trade, Exploration and Shipping

The British, as an adventurous trading people, created the base on which the industrial revolution would be built. This in turn created a shipbuilding industry.

3. Coal and Metal

Coal, as a source of power, was fundamental to the revolution, as was the metal it could smelt and which could be made into machines.

4. Textiles

If trade and coal powered the revolution, textiles were the product which produced the wealth to drive it forward.

5. Steam and Steel

Steam engines powered by coal and made of metal transformed a steady revolution into an explosion of economic activity. We see signs of Britain's influence spreading as the British built railways in France and further afield, and men like Joseph Ruston sold steam pumps to Russia and to the new oil industry.

6. Communication

Steam powered railway trains connected the nation and provided the routes for electric telegraph to push aside the handwritten letter. Mechanised printing and paper making made books and newspapers windely available.

7. Armaments

Steam engines also made armaments, increasingly needed as the rivalry of nations transformed into battle.

8. Manufacturing for the Home

The railways linked towns with each other and with the coast. High Streets appeared with shops selling all manner of fresh and manufactured products to a hungry population.

9. The Sewing Machine and Bicycle

Sewing machines made of metal transformed the production of clothing from cloth already manufactured by machine. The intricate skills of sewing machine manufacture were applied to the bicycle, making cheap transport available to the working man.

10. The Internal Combustion Engine

From the bicycle to move to a vehicle powered by that other fossil fuel, oil, was a logical extension. British manufacturers were at first held back by the Red Flag, but, once it was removed, factories began to appear in places like Coventry, Birmingham and Oxford. Why stay on the ground? Powered aircraft began to be seen in the skies. Ships began to be fuelled by oil.

11. Electric Power

The dynamo opened the flood gates both to the generation of electricity and its use in powering the factories of Britain, in lighting streets and homes and in providing transport for urban dwellers.

12. The Great War

On the eve of the Great War, Britain was the giant of world manufacturing. The trenches of Flanders would see this power, but also that of Germany, France and America. The four years of war witnessed technical advances but drained the nation's resources to the advantage of America who assumed the position of top dog

13. The Aftermath of War

An initial boom was followed by the collapse of traditional industries, with unemployment and depression.

14. The Interwar Years

New industries bucked the trend: motor vehicles, electricity, aircraft, chemicals. New industries begat new centres of population; house building boomed. None of this could protect the country from the crash in the USA

15. Rearmament and the Second World War

For many war began in 1935 with well hidden rearmament. Shadow factories were built to manufacture aircraft safe from enemy bombing. Once again the whole nation went to war, with the motor vehicle factories this time taking the lead followed by electronics and chemicals. Once again the nation emerged victorious, but drained of resource.

16. The Post-war Export Drive

With the coffers empty, the nation had to export its way back into prosperity. The motor industry led the way alongside electronics and chemicals. Once again a post war boom hid the problems facing shipbuilding

17. The Festival of Britain

A century after the Great Exhibition, the Festival of Britain celebrated what it meant to be British. Manufacturing was not centre stage but was ever present with the new white hope of nuclear power and new materials: aluminium used for London Underground trains, fibreglass and rubber used for flooring. It was a time of hope after the deprivation of war.

You can buy How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World at Pen & Sword, on Amazon and at WH Smith.