In 1819 Charles Macintosh, a manufacturing chemist contracted with the Glasgow Gas Works to receive some of their waste products which he used to dissolve rubber and so manufacture the ‘double-textured’ waterproof cloth to which he was to give his name. 
Besides the usability of the new cloth there was the cost of producing it, and this might have been the decisive factor in launching affordable rubberized articles into the world. Undoubtedly the use of what would otherwise be a waste product made production of rubberized cloth dramatically cheaper.
When Town Gas began to be produced in the first decades of the 19th Century the method was to heat coal. A gaseous complex of substances was given off, which was to an extent ‘purified’ before the resultant material - itself a mixture of methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide - was collected in the gas-holder ready for distribution along the pipes.
In the gas works proper you have four products: the coke, left in the oven when the coal has burned; ammoniacal water resulting from sluicing the gas given off with water to take ammonia out of it; the town gas itself, stored in the gasholder; and a heavy oily liquid known as tar oil.
The other part was to experiment with the tar oil as the basis for a cheap solvent for rubber. It was known already that material of this sort would act in this way.
The move to Manchester was based on his entering into a partnership. Two members of the highly influential Birley family - the brothers Hugh Hornby and Joseph Birley - were involved, and a third party, R.W Barton. They undertook to build a mill for the production of his waterproof cloth opposite existing premisses owned by the Birleys - premises in Chorlton-in-Medlock in Manchester.
How Charles came to approach the Birley concern is not known, so far as I am aware, but one of the leading cotton manufacturers in Manchester could quite conceivably have been known to one of the leading industrialists in Glasgow.
They were cotton spinners and manufacturers in Manchester, and owned premises on the East side of Cambridge Street, from the river to the further end of the block of buildings known as the ‘New Mill’, all of which were then employed in spinning and weaving. These three gentlemen, Mr Macintosh and Messrs. Hugh and Joseph Birley, together with a Mr R.W. Barton, formed the firm of Chas. Macintosh & Co., in 1824, and, for the purpose of carrying on the waterproof business, erected on the West side of Cambridge Street the building now known as the ‘Old Mill’. They built it so that, should the waterproof business prove a failure, it might be added to and converted into a cotton mill. The new business did not turn out a failure, and the building remains with an unfinished side to this day.
By 1850 the works comprised three mills, a warehouse, a vulcan house, calender sheds, and gas holders. Ironically, during the 1860s, there was a decline in cotton spinning in the area, and some of Birley’s mills were converted to rubber production as this was more profitable. The complete works appear on a contemporary engraving of the site, which was first published in 1889.
The works was taken over by the Dunlop Company in 1923, and the manufacture of rubber products continued on the site until February 2000, although the original mill [not presumably the one burnt out in 1838] was destroyed in 1940 as a result of bombing raids.
Besides the usability of the new cloth there was the cost of producing it, and this might have been the decisive factor in launching affordable rubberized articles into the world. Undoubtedly the use of what would otherwise be a waste product made production of rubberized cloth dramatically cheaper.
When Town Gas began to be produced in the first decades of the 19th Century the method was to heat coal. A gaseous complex of substances was given off, which was to an extent ‘purified’ before the resultant material - itself a mixture of methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide - was collected in the gas-holder ready for distribution along the pipes.
In the gas works proper you have four products: the coke, left in the oven when the coal has burned; ammoniacal water resulting from sluicing the gas given off with water to take ammonia out of it; the town gas itself, stored in the gasholder; and a heavy oily liquid known as tar oil.
The other part was to experiment with the tar oil as the basis for a cheap solvent for rubber. It was known already that material of this sort would act in this way.
The move to Manchester was based on his entering into a partnership. Two members of the highly influential Birley family - the brothers Hugh Hornby and Joseph Birley - were involved, and a third party, R.W Barton. They undertook to build a mill for the production of his waterproof cloth opposite existing premisses owned by the Birleys - premises in Chorlton-in-Medlock in Manchester.
How Charles came to approach the Birley concern is not known, so far as I am aware, but one of the leading cotton manufacturers in Manchester could quite conceivably have been known to one of the leading industrialists in Glasgow.
They were cotton spinners and manufacturers in Manchester, and owned premises on the East side of Cambridge Street, from the river to the further end of the block of buildings known as the ‘New Mill’, all of which were then employed in spinning and weaving. These three gentlemen, Mr Macintosh and Messrs. Hugh and Joseph Birley, together with a Mr R.W. Barton, formed the firm of Chas. Macintosh & Co., in 1824, and, for the purpose of carrying on the waterproof business, erected on the West side of Cambridge Street the building now known as the ‘Old Mill’. They built it so that, should the waterproof business prove a failure, it might be added to and converted into a cotton mill. The new business did not turn out a failure, and the building remains with an unfinished side to this day.
By 1850 the works comprised three mills, a warehouse, a vulcan house, calender sheds, and gas holders. Ironically, during the 1860s, there was a decline in cotton spinning in the area, and some of Birley’s mills were converted to rubber production as this was more profitable. The complete works appear on a contemporary engraving of the site, which was first published in 1889.
The works was taken over by the Dunlop Company in 1923, and the manufacture of rubber products continued on the site until February 2000, although the original mill [not presumably the one burnt out in 1838] was destroyed in 1940 as a result of bombing raids.
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz