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Abstract
This article explores how George Davis’s vision for chemical engineering was contingent upon both the national economic conditions of the period (1870–1900) and the critical transition to more economic production for chemical manufacture. Trade tariffs and international competition exacerbated an already challenging economic climate and stricter government regulation of pollution from chemical manufactories added further pressure. Sectors of the British chemical industry faced over-capacity and over-production, while most sectors were wasteful of materials and energy and were over-manned. Davis’s motivation was borne of his work as a chemist, as a consultant, and as an inspector with the Alkali Inspectorate. His search for knowledge and understanding was garnered from on-going investigations in the field and in his Technical Laboratory, coupled with developments in equipment and machinery. Recognising his own limited capability to overhaul the British chemical industry, Davis promoted his framework of chemical engineering to increase the cadre of chemical engineers.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Anthony Travis (Edelstein Center, Israel) for his helpful comments on an early version for the workshop in Oxford, to Bill Brock for information on Henry Armstrong, to Robert Bud (Science Museum, London) in his role as commentator at the workshop and to all those attending the workshop in May 2019 who contributed to the discussion. Thanks also to the two reviewers whose comments have helped reshape this paper. I also want to acknowledge the assistance of Beverley Garratt (Institution of Chemical Engineers, Rugby) and to thank the Institution of Chemical Engineers for permission to quote from documents in their possession and to reproduce the photograph of George E. Davis.
Notes
1 D. W. F. Hardie and J. Davidson Pratt, A History of the Modern British Chemical Industry (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966), 15–81.
2 James Donnelly, “Consultants, Managers, Testing Slaves: Changing Roles for Chemists in the British Alkali Industry, 1850–1920,” Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 100–128, 102; James Donnelly, “Defining the Industrial Chemist in the United Kingdom, 1850–1921,” Journal of Social History 29 (1996): 779–796, on 780.
3 For alizarin, see Anthony S. Travis, The Rainbow Makers (Bethlehem, PA): Lehigh University Press, 1993), 165–66. For indigo, see Peter Reed, “The British Chemical Industry and the Indigo Trade,” British Journal for the History of Science 25 (1992): 114–16.
4 D. W. F. Hardie, A History of the Chemical Industry in Widnes (Birmingham: Imperial Chemical Industries Limited, 1950), 139.
5 Kenneth Warren, Chemical Foundations: The Alkali Industry in Britain to 1926 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 149 and 151. L. F. Haber, The Chemical Industry During the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 217–18.
6 Haber, The Chemical Industry, 213.
7 Haber, The Chemical Industry, 221–24.
8 Peter Reed, “The Alkali Inspectorate 1874–1906: Pressure for Wider and Tighter Pollution Regulation,” Ambix 59, no. 2 (2012): 131–51.
9 A. E. Jarvis and P. N. Reed, “Where there’s Brass there’s Muck: the Impact of Industry in the Mersey Basin c.1700–1900,” in Ecology and Landscape Development: A History of the Mersey Basin, ed. E. F. Greenwood (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press and National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 1999), 60.
10 “Review of Dr. Jul. Post, Grundriss der Chemischen Technologie (Berlin: Oppenheim, 1877 and 1879),” American Journal of Chemistry 2, no, 3 (1880–81): 212–214.
11 J. F. Donnelly, “Chemical Engineering in England, 1880–1922,” Annals of Science 45 (1988): 555–590; Clive Cohen, “The Early History of Chemical Engineering: A Reassessment,” The British Journal for the History of Science 29, no. 2 (1996): 171-194.
12 John W. Servos, “The Industrial Relations of Science: Chemical Engineering at MIT, 1900–1939,” Isis 71 (1980): 531–549, on 535.
13 Colin Divall and Sean F. Johnson, Scaling Up: The Institution of Chemical Engineers and the Rise of a New Profession (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), 25.
14 Norman Swindin, “The George Davis Memorial Lecture,” Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers 31 (1953): 187–200.
15 Swindin, “Memorial Lecture,” 195.
16 Papers of G. E. Davis/G. E. Davis and Davis Bros., Manchester, c 1870–1906, Science Museum London. Hereafter with DAV reference.
17 Swindin, “Memorial Lecture,” 188.
18 Jonathan Bentley, “The Chemical Department of the Royal School of Mines. Its Origins and Development under A.W. Hofmann,” Ambix 17, no. 3 (1970): 153–181.
19 Colin A. Russell, “Sir Edward Frankland (1825–1899),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., 2004), https://doi-org.libproxy.york.ac.uk/10.1093/ref:odnb/10083. See also R. F. Bud and G. K. Roberts, Science Versus Practice: Chemistry in Victorian Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 94.
20 Don Freshwater, “George Edward Davis (1850-1907),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., 2004), https://doi-org.libproxy.york.ac.uk/10.1093/ref:odnb/37345.
21 Peter J. Morris and Colin A. Russell, with John Graham Smith eds., Archives of the British Chemical Industry, 1750–1914: A Handlist (Faringdon: British Society for the History of Science, 1988), 14–15 and 177.
22 Letter from George Davis to his parents, dated 25 May 1873. (Davis Archives, The Institution of Chemical Engineers).
23 Letter of Appointment, File DAV 2/2-1.
24 James Donnelly, “Consultants, Managers,” 105.
25 Peter Reed, Acid Rain and the Rise of the Environmental Chemist in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Life and Work of Robert Angus Smith (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 109–128.
26 Reed, Acid Rain, 126-28. For an example of Davis’s reporting, see Twentieth Annual Report of Alkali, etc. Works by the Chief Inspector for 1883, P.P. 1884 (C.4096), 46–49 and 92.
27 Nineteenth Annual Report on Alkali, etc. Works, by The Chief Inspector, P.P. 1883 (C.3715), 34.
28 See the film, Thorncliffe – A Story of Enterprise in its Seventh Generation 1953, http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/thorncliffe-story-enterprise-its-seventh-generation (accessed 20 February 2019.)
29 A History of Newton Chambers & Co., Ltd., Rockingham Works (Unpublished manuscript). DAV2/1.8. Davis Papers.
30 Later in 1887 the works was reopened under a new manager and during the 1890s the company introduce IZAL disinfectant made from distilled coal tar. The works closed in 1908 when the plant was replaced with coke ovens designed by the German engineer, Heinrich Koppers.
31 “Handbill for The Manchester Technical Laboratory,” DAV2/4-4.
32 “Editorial,” CTJ, 1 (1887): 1.
33 During 1889 the CTJ published a series of biographical articles by J. Fenwick Allen and these were later published as a book, J. Fenwick Allen, Some Founders of the Chemical Industry (Manchester: Sherratt and Hughes, 1906) which remains a useful source on the 19th century alkali industry in Britain.
34 Partnership of G. E. Davis and A. R. Davis. DAV3/1-1. See “The Society of Chemical Industry,” The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry (July 1931, Jubilee Edition): 109.
35 Correspondence with Borough of Torquay. DAV5/2-11 and DAV5/2-12.
36 DAV5/2-11 and DAV5/2-12.
37 DAV5/2-13.
38 DAV5/2-16
39 George Davis and Alfred Davis, The River Irwell and its Tributaries. A Monograph on River Pollution (Manchester: John Heywood, 1890).
40 These are extracted from the Davis Bros Collection at the Science Museum, London and from Swindin, “Memorial Lecture,” 187–200.
41 George E. Davis, A Handbook of Chemical Engineering, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Manchester: Davis Bros., 1904), vol. 1, 44.
42 “Editorial,” CTJ 11 (28 May 1887): 1.
43 “Twelve Lectures upon Chemical Engineering,” CTJ 1 (28 January 1888), 3.
44 Claudia Flavell-While, “Chemical Engineers that Changed the World: George E. Davis”. Download: https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/features/cewctw-george-e-davis-meet-the-daddy/ (accessed 29 June 2020).
45 Central Institution’s Annual Calendar 1885. Imperial College Archives and Corporate Records Unit, London.
46 Davis, Handbook, Vol. 1, 3.
47 Central Institution Annual Calendar for 1885, Imperial College Archives and Corporate Records Unit, London.
48 Watson Smith was appointed demonstrator (1880) and then first lecturer (1885) in technological chemistry at Owens College Manchester.
49 Davis, “Introduction – The Utility of Technical Experiments,” in Handbook, vol. 1, 6.
50 For further details of the Technical Laboratory, see “Technical Laboratory,” in Handbook, vol. 1, 45–80. Also see “Chemical Engineering III,” CTJ (2 June 1888): 340–4.
51 DAV2/4-4.
52 “Proposed Permanent Collection of Chemical Exhibits,” CTJ (1 June 1889): 339.
53 “Proposed Permanent Collection,” CTJ (1 June 1889): 340; and “Permanent Chemical Exhibition,” CTJ (10 May 1890): 302.
54 “Proposed Permanent Collection,” CTJ (1 June 1889): 340; and “Permanent Chemical Exhibition,” CTJ (10 May 1890): 302.
55 “Proposed Permanent Collection,” CTJ (1 June 1889): 340. See also “Chemical Exhibits at the Manchester Exhibition,” CTJ 1 (28 May 1887): 1–2; “Glasgow International Exhibition,” CTJ (26 May 1888): 323–24.
56 “Opening of the Chemical Exhibition in Manchester,” Manchester Guardian, 16 April 1890, 6.
57 “Our Chambers of Commerce and the Chemical Industries,” CTJ (26 January 1889): 49–50.
58 Leading US chemical engineers, William Walker and Arthur Little, also emphasized the importance of ongoing research. See Servos “The Industrial Relations,” 536.
59 Swindin, “Memorial Lecture,” 194.
60 Davis, Handbook vol. 1, v.
61 Davis, Handbook, vol. 1, v and vi.
62 Davis was a leading figure in the Manchester Microscopy Society and he founded and edited The Northern Microscopist. He published Practical Microscopy (London: David Boque, 1882).
63 “Change of Address,” Chemical Trade Journal (12 November, 1904): 441.
64 Based on the Bank of England calculator.
65 “Chairman’s Address,” Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry XV (1896): 782.
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Peter Reed
Peter Reed is retired and an independent researcher living in California having worked for 23 years for the museums in Liverpool (UK). He has written widely on nineteenth-century science and technology, in particular chemistry and chemical industry, and the impact of industry on the environment and on health. His most recent publication is, “John Fletcher Moulton and the Transforming Aftermath of the Chemists’ War,” The International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology 87, no. 1 (2017): 1–19. He is currently co-authoring (with Peter Morris) a biography of Henry Enfield Roscoe, the Manchester chemist and educational reformer. Email: [email protected].