John Fletcher Moulton and the transforming aftermath of the chemists’ war

This article is based on a talk given to the Newcomen Society in London on 13 January 2016

Abstract

In 1917, Richard Pilcher, registrar and secretary of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, used the phrase, ‘the chemists’ war’ to describe the First World War [R. B. Pilcher, ‘Chemistry in Wartime’, The Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 9 (1917), 4.]. Pitcher’s phrase was to prove prophetic in another way because the war would transform dramatically the working and organisation of the British chemical industry. With his background in mathematics, the legal profession and as an MP, John Fletcher Moulton (Baron Moulton of Bank; 1844–1921) was an unlikely person to play a crucial role in both the war effort and the post-war transformation, but the analytical ability and organisational skills developed from his patent court cases proved more important than scientific and technical knowledge.

Keywords:

• Lord John Fletcher Moulton
• the First World War
• patents
• dyestuffs
• industrial research
• chemical engineering
• transformation of chemical industry

Acknowledgement

I am grateful for the comments and questions following the talk and the comments of Jonathan Aylen and Tony Travis that have all improved the article. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Jean Talbot at The Carpet Museum in Kidderminster and Kayleigh Scott (Manager) at the Devil’s Porridge Museum at Eastriggs (Scotland).

Notes

This article is based on a talk given to the Newcomen Society in London on 13 January 2016

1. T. Mathews, rev. H. Mooney, ‘John Fletcher Moulton’, ODNB.

2. J. Barrow-Green, ‘A Corrective to the Spirit of too Exclusively Pure Mathematics: Robert Smith (1689–1768) and his Prizes at Cambridge University’, Annals of Science, 56 (1999), 271–316.

3. ‘Death of Lord Moulton’, The Times, 10 March 1921.

4. H. F. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, (London: Nisbet and Co., 1922), p. 106.

5. J. F. Moulton, ‘The Verification of Modern Scientific Theories’, Proceedings of the Royal Institution 8 (1879), 216–30. See also Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, p. 107.

6. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, p. 106.

7. J. F. Moulton and W. Spottiswoode, ‘On the Sensitive State of Electrical Discharge through Rarefied Gases. [Part I]’, Proceedings of the Royal Society 23 (1879), 21–4; J. F. Moulton and W. Spottiswoode, ‘On the Sensitive State of Vacuum Discharges Electrical Discharge through Rarefied Gases [Part II]’, Proceedings of the Royal Society 30 (1880), 302–4; J. F. Moulton and W. Spottiswoode, ‘On Stratified Discharges. VI. Shadows of Striae’, Proceedings of the Royal Society 32 (1881), 385–7. J. F. Moulton and W. Spottiswoode, ‘On Stratified Discharges. VII. Multiple Radiations from the Negative Terminal’, Proceedings of the Royal Society 32 (1881), 388–90; J. F. Moulton and W. Spottiswoode, ‘On the Movement of Gas in ‘Vaccum Discharges’’, Proceedings of the Royal Society 33 (1882), 453–5.

8. Royal Society Collection: Ref: EC/1880/13.

9. J. J. Thomson also acknowledged the importance of the research for his later work. In 1883, Moulton was appointed to the Paris Commission considering units of measurement of electrical quantities.

10. Moulton was also on a Parliamentary Committee to determine who had invented the tank.

11. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, p. 39.

12. Ibid., p. 57.

13. Mathews, ‘John Fletcher Moulton’.

14. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, p. 179.

15. Ibid., p. 186. Moulton and Clare Savile apparently worked together very amicably.

16. ‘Appendices’, History of the Ministry of Munitions (London: HMSO, 1920–1922), vol. 2.

17. Sir Frederic Nathan was transferred from the Admiralty to take responsibility for the sub-department.

18. At the outset of war, it was estimated at a ton of explosive per day but by the end of the war nearer to 1000 tons per day. See Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, p. 186

19. R. Macleod, ‘Chemists go to War: The Mobilisation of Civilian Chemists and the British War Effort, 1914–1918’, Annals of Science, 50 (1993), 455–88, 466.

20. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, p. 191. See also, W. J. Reader, Imperial Chemical Industries: A History. Volume 1 The Forerunners 1870–1926, (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 284.

21. The processes were worked at Brunner, Mond’s Lostock works in Cheshire. See Reader, p. 285.

22. G. Hartcup, The War of Invention: Scientific Developments, 1914–18 (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1988), p. 49.

23. W. van der Kloot, ‘Lord Justice of Appeal John Fletcher Moulton and Explosives Production in World War I: ‘The Mathematical Mind Triumphant’’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 68 (2014), 171–86: 176.

24. Lyddite (trinitrophenol) also required the ‘nitrating mixture’.

25. P. Reed, ‘Making War Work for Industry: The United Alkali Company’s Central Laboratory During World War One’, Ambix, 62/1 (2015), 72–93: 83.

26. A. S. Travis, ‘Nitrogen, Novel High-pressure Chemistry, and the German War Effort (1900–1918)’, The Seventh Wheeler Lecture, 22 October 2014, Report of the Royal Society of Chemistry Historical Group 2016, 16–7.

27. Lord Moulton, Science and War, The Rede Lecture 1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1919), p. 10.

28. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, pp. 206–7.

29. The camphor absorbed any acids from the other components, but since it evaporated over time the resulting mixture proved unstable.

30. Nobel lost the case at every stage. See Reader, p. 143.

31. Reader, p. 142. The patent dispute came down to the difference between soluble nitrocellulose (collodion) and insoluble nitrocellulose (gun-cotton).

32. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, p. 196.

33. Whale oil was also used to protect solders’ feet against trench foot.

34. ‘RDB’ was named after ‘Research Department formula B’. See M. Freemantle, The Chemists’ War 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2015), p. 131.

35. M. Freemantle, The Chemists’ War 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2015), pp. 110–5.

36. Chaim Weizmann is considered the father of industrial microbiological fermentation.

37. Reed, ‘Making War Work for Industry’, p. 80.

38. MacLeod, pp. 455–81, p. 463. See also R. Sharp, ‘Kenneth Bingham Quinan’, ODNB.

39. ‘Appendices’, History of the Ministry of Munitions (London: HMSO, 1920–1922), vol. 2.

40. Quinan built a Grillo sulphuric acid plant at Gretna.

41. G. L. Routledge, Gretna’s Secret War (Carlisle: Bookcase, 1999), p. 5.

42. Ibid., pp. 6–11.

43. The plant and machinery were auctioned in October 1922.

44. N. Storey and M. Housego, Women in the First World War (Oxford: Shire Publications, 2010), p. 37.

45. Hansard, Vol. 95 (28 June 1917).

46. A. J. P. Taylor, The First World War: An Illustrated History (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966), p. 11.

47. Lord Moulton, Science and War, The Rede Lecture 1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 10.

48. Ivan Levinstein, ‘Section 22 of the Patents Act, 1883, and its Bearing on British Industry’, Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry 17 (1898), p. 320.

49. P. Reed, ‘The British Chemical Industry and the Indigo Trade’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 25.1, 3/1(1992), p. 118.

50. Ibid., p. 119.

51. Ibid.

52. The two works were conveniently connected by the Manchester Ship Canal.

53. The other two companies were British Dyes Ltd (Huddersfield) and Castner-Kellner Alkali Company (Weston Point).

54. Reed, ‘The British Chemical Industry and the Indigo Trade’, p. 122.

55. Reader, p. 273.

56. Ibid., p. 274.

57. Claus & Company Ltd’s predecessor Claus and Rée had acquired Brook, Simpson and Spiller, which had purchased Perkins and Sons in 1874. See D. W. F. Hardie and J. Davidson Platt, A History of the Modern British Chemical Industry (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966), p. 300.

58. Included the factory sites of Levinstein Ltd. (Blackley, Clayton and Ellesmere Port) and British Dyes Ltd. (Turnbridge and Dalton).

59. Moulton was reputedly elected chairman because he was the only person acceptable to all parties.

60. Reader, p. 280.

61. Kathryn Steen, The American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry. War and Politics, 1910–1930 (Chapel Hill (NC): The University of North Carolina Press, 2014), pp. 42–5 and 287–93.

62. J. F. Moulton (Lord Moulton), ‘Preface,’ in Science and War, ed. A. C. Seward (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917), pp. ix–x.

63. Reed, ‘Making War Work for Industry’, pp. 74–6.

64. D. Edgerton, ‘Science and Technology in British Industry’, Business History, 29.4 (1987), 84–99, 101.

65. Oswald process for converting the ammonia into nitric acid was also felt to be important in the post-war period for the manufacture of fertilisers.

66. Reader, p. 352.

67. Ibid., p. 352.

68. Roscoe Brunner to Moulton, Dec. 1918 — ICI Agricultural Division (AD) File 108960; Brunner, Mond Executive Committee Minute Book/01, p. 23, 30 June 1919, (Cheshire Archives and Local Studies).

69. Ibid., p. 354. For details of the Haber-Bosch process during the war, see A.S. Travis, The Synthetic Nitrogen Industry in World War 1: Its Emergence and Expansion (Dordrecht: Springer, 2015).

70. Ibid., p. 355.

71. Castner-Kellner was chosen because hydrogen was readily available.

72. G. P. Pollit, ‘The Development of the Synthetic Nitrogen Industry in Great Britain’, Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, Transactions, 46 (1927), 291–5, 293–4.

73. H. Tongue, The Design and Construction of High Pressure Chemical Plant (London: Chapman and Hall, 1959).

74. See advert for course with contents in Chemical Trade Journal, 11 (1888), p. 3. H. E. Armstrong had initiated a course with the title ‘chemical engineering’ at the Central Institution in London in 1884 even though Armstrong had no industrial experience and was more interested in chemical research. The title was later dropped. See W. H. Brock, H. E. Armstrong and the Teaching of Science 1880–1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).

75. G. E. Davis, Handbook of Chemical Engineering (Manchester: Davis Bros., 1900).

76. T. S. Reynolds, 75 Years of Progress: A History of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 1908–1983 (New York: The Institute, 1983), p. 12.

77. J. F. Moulton (Lord Moulton), ‘The Training and Functions of the Chemical Engineer’, Transactions of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, 17 (1939), 186–91, 186.

78. Ibid., p. 187.

79. Ibid., pp. 186–91.

80. M. Sanderson, The Universities and British Industry 1859–1970 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), p. 289.

81. Moulton, The Life of Lord Moulton, pp 230–31.

82. ‘Obituary of Lord Moulton’, Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry XL (1921): Review IV (1921), p. 138.