Photograph of a painting of St. Rollox chemical works at the opening of the Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway in 1831

St Rollox Chemical Works was a Georgian industrial manufacturer of chemicals[1] that was owned and operated by Scottish industrialist Charles Tennant[2] and was described as the largest plant in Europe, if not the world.[3]

Formation

St Rollox was established in 1797 at a location in the North Glasgow close the Monkland Canal that enabled it to transport coal and ironstone from the coal mines in Lanarkshire, to produce products based on the bleaching of chlorine.[3]

[4]

Operation

St Rollox was started as a chloring bleaching manufacturer that used Claude Louis Berthollet potash-chlorine bleaching liquor, that was modified by sustituting the potash with lime to produce a bleach.[3] In 1799, the process changed when the company moved to the Macintosh-Tennant process to produce dry bleaching powder[3][5] in a process that was patented on 30 April 1799.[6] The product was a dry powder was made from chlorine and slaked lime. The powder proved to popular and sold well and this enabled the factory to expand and diversify internally. It began to produce soap and sulphuric acid.[3] When the Salt tax was removed, the factory moved to producing crystal and ash soda using the Leblanc process in the 1820's.[3] This enabled the factory to expand further with the use of platina lined vats to hold the vitriol concentrates instead of the less efficient lead lined, more furnaces, more warehouses and storage space as well as building a canal basis and a railyway terminal.[3] By 1850, further expansion had added a cooperage and an iron foundry to make and repair its own equipment.[3]

References

Citations

  1. ^ Britain, Great (1884). Great industries of Great Britain. Vol. 1. London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin and Company. p. 296.
  2. ^ Hutchinson, Martin (1 January 2023). Forging Modernity. Cambridge, uk: Lutterworth Press. p. 351. ISBN 978-0-7188-9686-7.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Christie 2018, p. 313.
  4. ^ Chang, Hasok; Jackson, Catherine (2007). An element of controversy: the life of chlorine in science, medicine, technology and war. London: British society for the history of science. pp. 168–174. ISBN 978-0-906450-01-7.
  5. ^ Macintosh, George (1847). Biographical Memoir of the Late Charles Macintosh ... Glasgow: W.G. Blackie & Company. p. 38.
  6. ^ The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures, and Agriculture: Consisting of Original Communications, Specifications of Patent Inventions, Practical and Interesting Papers, Selected from the Philosophical Transactions and Scientific Journals of All Nations ... Vol. XI. London: G. and T. Wilkie. 1799. p. 72.

Bibliography

  • Christie, John R.R. (2018). "Chemical Glasgow and its Entrepreneurs, 1760-1860". In Roberts, Lissa; Werrett, Simon (eds.). Compound Histories Materials, Governance and Production, 1760-1840. Cultural Dynamics of Science. Vol. 2. London: 978-90-04-32549-4. pp. 311–332. doi:10.1163/9789004325562_015.

External links