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Abstract
The development and growth of James Keir’s chemical works at the close of the eighteenth century can be attributed to its advantageous positioning within networks of intense scientific communication, practical chemical materials and rich geographic resources. First of all, an extensive intellectual and scientific network supported Keir’s chemical industry. Fruitful correspondence and frequent meetings wove together the skills of the Lunar Society of Birmingham and its peripheral members, fomenting scientific, industrial and legal dialogues that definitively shaped the birth and growth of Keir’s alkali and soap-making pursuits at Tipton. Furthermore, Keir’s industry was situated at the heart of a material web of chemical reagents and products. The development of his synthetic soda process rendered useful the industrial waste from nearby factories. The resulting ‘soda of commerce’ was then employed in saponification and glassmaking, signifying that Keir’s manufactory was just one point on a larger interrelated web of chemical industry in the West Midlands. Finally, the physical location of Keir’s chemical works epitomized the necessity of carving out prime territory in a burgeoning industrial landscape. His chemical manufactory was situated at the heart of an ideal network of expanding transport canals and rich coal seams. This case study will expose the necessary overlap of human, material and geographic networks that stimulated Keir’s chemical operations. While it is meant to be a slice within the greater historical landscape of this era, Keir’s extensive networks will invite a teasing out of wider social, scientific and economic themes.
Acknowledgements
I thank the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for their ongoing financial support through the Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship. Additionally, I am grateful for the indispensable research guidance provided by my supervisor, Dr Trevor Levere. Equal thanks go to the editorial staff at the International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology and an anonymous peer reviewer. Finally, I recognize the valuable comments and suggestions from colleagues who heard this paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science (Victoria, BC, 2013) and at the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine (Manchester, UK, 2013).
Notes
1 W. V. Farrar, ‘Chemistry and the Chemical Industry in the 19th Century: The Henrys of Manchester and Other Studies’, in Richard L. Hills and W. H. Brock, eds, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1997), p. I:192.
2 L. M. Principe, New Narratives in Eighteenth-Century Chemistry: Contributions from the First Francis Bacon Workshop, 21–23 April 2005, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California (New York: Springer, 2007), p. 190.
3 Select academic literature highlighting chemistry and industry in the eighteenth century: A. Clow and N. L. Clow, The Chemical Revolution: A Contribution to Social Technology (London: Batchworth Press, 1952); W. H. B. Court, The Rise of the Midland Industries, 1600–1838 (Oxford University Press, 1938); M. C. Jacob and L. Stewart, Practical Matter: Newton’s Science in the Service of Industry and Empire, 1687–1851 (Harvard University Press, 2004); P. M. Jones, Industrial Enlightenment: Science, Technology and Culture in Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760–1820 (Manchester University Press, 2008); T. H. Levere and G. L’E. Turner, Discussing Chemistry and Steam (Oxford Scholarship Online, January 2010); A. E. Musson, The Growth of British Industry (London: B. T. Batsford, 1978); A. E. Musson, ed., Science, Technology, and Economic Growth in the Eighteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1972); A. E. Musson and E. Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (University of Toronto Press, 1969); R. E. Schofield, ‘The Industrial Orientation of Science in the Lunar Society of Birmingham’, Isis, 48.4 (1957), 408–15; R. E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963); L. Stewart, ‘Experimental Spaces and the Knowledge Economy’, History of Science, 45.2 (2007), 155–77.
4 This study will refer to ‘Keir’s’ chemical works, but the name includes ‘Keir and Co.’ as Keir’s businesses had several partners (including Alexander Blair, William Playfair and John Playfair).
5 Schofield, Lunar Society of Birmingham, p. 250. The term ‘Lunar Society’ will refer to the provincial intellectual society that began as the ‘Lunar Circle’ between 1765–75, as well as to signify the Lunar Society from 1775 onward.
6 I use these terms in the spirit of economic historian Joel Mokyr who argues that the Industrial Enlightenment was enabled by the sharing of ‘propositional’ (savant/ scientist sharing facts) and ‘prescriptive’ (fabricant/manufacturer making facts useful) knowledge. See J. Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 1–27, 54. Peter Jones frames Keir’s life and work as straddling the savant-fabricant model, along with Watt and chemical industrialist John Roebuck. See Jones, pp. 116–17.
7 See J. Uglow, ‘Lunar Society of Birmingham’, in H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 31 (Oxford University Press, 2004).
8 J. Golinski, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760–1820 (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 39–43.
9 M. Crosland, Scientific Institutions and Practice in France and Britain, c.1700–c.1870 (Ashgate/Variorum, Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: 2007), pp. 43–68.
10 Keir became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1785. The content of his Royal Society communications shows a direct intersection of chemistry and industry: J. Keir and G. Fordyce, ‘On the Crystallizations Observed on Glass’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 66 (1776), 530–42; J. Keir and H. Cavendish, ‘Experiments on the Congelation of the Vitriolic Acid’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 77 (1787), 267–81; J. Keir, ‘Experiments and Observations on the Dissolution of Metals in Acids, and their Precipitations’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 80 (1790), 359–84.
11 D. Miller, ‘The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy: The Royal Society and the Culture of Practical Utility in the Later Eighteenth Century’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 32.2 (1999), 199.
12 Ibid.
13 Levere and Turner, p. 3. For a list of attending and non-attending (honorary members), see ibid., pp. 20–30.
14 Jones, p. 88.
15 For a letter from de la Métherie to Keir and the rest of the Lunar Society, see A. Moilliet, Sketch of the Life of James Keir, Esq., FRS, with a Selection from his Correspondence (London: Robert Edmund Taylor, 1859), p. 117.
16 Ibid., p. 93.
17 Ibid., p. 110.
18 Jones, p. 115.
19 For examples of European and American colleagues of the Lunar Society (including Antoine Lavoisier, Chevalier Landriani, Peter Camper, Benjamin Franklin, Jean André DeLuc, etc.), see Schofield, Lunar Society of Birmingham, pp. 237–42.
20 T. D. Burns, ‘The Lunar Society and Midlands Chemists’, Analytical Proceedings, 28 (1991), 402.
21 E. Robinson and D. McKie, eds, Partners in Science: Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black (London: Constable. 1970), letter 21, James Keir to James Watt, 14 December 1771, pp. 25–26.
22 Ibid., letter 22, James Keir to James Watt, 27 February 1772, pp. 26–27.
23 Ibid., letter 187, James Keir to James Watt, 24 November 1797, pp. 283–84.
24 Mr Charles Porden was the customer discussed. See Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. Series One, the Boulton and Watt Archive and the Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library (Marlborough, England: Adam Matthew, 1993 — Microfilm Collection, Media Commons, University of Toronto, Toronto), letter 79, James Keir to Matthew Boulton, 25 March 1802, part I, reel II.
25 Robinson and McKie, letter 21, James Keir to James Watt, 14 December 1771, pp. 25–26.
26 Robert G. W. Anderson and Jean Jones, eds, The Correspondence of Joseph Black (Ashgate, 2012), vol. 1, letter 250, Joseph Black to James Watt, 7 September 1782, pp. 526–27.
27 J. Symanzik, W. Fischetti and I. Spence, ‘Commemorating William Playfair’s 250th Birthday’, Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, 24 (2009), 565. Keir’s comment was made in a 1777 letter to Boulton, discussing the arrival of John’s younger brother, William, at Boulton and Watt’s Company. William Playfair was a noted engineer and political economist.
28 J. R. Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer: Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century (Ashgate, 1998), p. 466.
29 J. Wedgwood, Correspondence of Josiah Wedgwood, 1781–1794 (London: Women’s Printing Society, 1906), vol. 3, letter, Josiah Wedgwood to William Nicholson, 25 October 1785, pp. 17–19.
30 Ibid., letter, Josiah Wedgwood to Sir John Dalrymple, 20 October 1789, pp. 104–06.
31 Harris, p. 475.
32 D. C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 75.
33 W. Bowden, Industrial Society in England towards the End of the Eighteenth Century, 2nd edn (London: Frank Cass, 1965), p. 12.
34 Industrial Revolution, letter 10, James Watt to William Small, 5 July 1769, part 1, reel 1.
35 Robinson and McKie, letter 21, James Keir to James Watt, 14 December 1771, pp. 25–26.
36 House of Commons Journal, 1778–80, vol. 37, pp. 891, 915.
37 R. L. Hills, James Watt, Volume 2: The Years of Toil, 1775–1785 (Ashbourne, Derbyshire: Landmark Collector’s Library, 2005), p. 185. George Fordyce was actually a close associate of Keir’s and he was the one who communicated Keir’s report to the Royal Society, ‘On the Crystallizations Observed on Glass’.
38 Ibid., p. 185.
39 K. H. Ledward, ed., ‘Journal, July 1780: Volume 87’, Journals of the Board of Trade and Plantations, Volume 14: January 1776–May 1782 (1938), pp. 320–28, <www.british-history.ac.uk> (accessed 5 February 2012).
40 Anderson and Jones, letter 204, James Watt to Joseph Black, 9 April 1781, pp. 456, 458. Although this 1781 reference may be confusing, it is clear that Keir and Blair were already in the process of solidifying their Tipton business plans by late 1780. See Anderson and Jones, letter 189, James Watt to Joseph Black, 15 October 1780, pp. 431–32.
41 Ledward, ‘Journal, February 1781: Volume 88’, pp. 375–96.
42 Anderson and Jones, letter 204, James Watt to Joseph Black, 9 April 1781, pp. 456, 458.
43 Ibid., letter 207, Joseph Black to James Watt, 1 May 1781, pp. 462–63.
44 Anderson and Jones, p. 463 (see editor’s notes for letter 209).
45 Ibid. The notebook entry (JWP C3/8) is from 25 October 1784.
46 J. L. Moilliet and B. M. D. Smith, A Mighty Chemist: James Keir of the Lunar Society (Smith Collection, 1982), p. 35. The first author, John Lewis Moilliet, is James Keir’s great-great-great grandson.
47 Industrial Revolution, letter 6, James Watt to James Keir, 15 January 1782, part 1, reel 3. To my knowledge, this legal proceeding did not occur.
48 D. S. Landes, ‘Technological Change and Development in Western Europe, 1750–1914’, in H. J. Habakkuk and M. Postan, eds, The Cambridge Economic History of Europe. The Industrial Revolutions and After: Incomes, Population and Technological Changes, 6.I (Cambridge University Press, 1965), 338.
49 R. Padley, ‘The Beginnings of the British Alkali Industry’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 11 (1967/68), p. 64. Sodium hydroxide, NaOH; sodium carbonate, Na2CO3; potassium hydroxide, KOH; and potassium carbonate, K2CO3. Although it is acknowledged that eighteenth-century chemists did not use such chemical formulae, such notations will be used occasionally in brackets or notes to aid the reader.
50 For a succinct discussion on the various industrial uses of soda and potash, see Landes, pp. 339–40.
51 North, pp. 67, 83. However, it has also been argued that imported vegetable alkali did meet British demands, even though local synthetic soda would have been less expensive and more easily supplied. See L. Gittins, ‘The Alkali Experiments of James Watt and James Keir, 1765–1780’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 68 (1997), 217–30.
52 Moilliet and Smith, p. 24.
53 For a brief description of locales of fossil alkali, see A. F. M. Willich and J. Mease, The Domestic Encyclopædia; or A Dictionary of Facts and Useful Knowledge, 3 (Philadelphia: William Young Birch and Abraham Small, 1804), 69.
54 Ibid.
55 T. Thomson, A System of Chemistry, 2 (Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1818), 39. The British also called the carbonate of potassium, ‘potash of commerce’. Chemical goods were thus infused with economic nuance.
56 Court, p. 229.
57 See Keir’s translation of ‘Soap’ from P. J. Macquer, A Dictionary of Chemistry: Containing the Theory and Practice of that Science ... and the Fundamental Principles of the Arts, Trades, and Manufactures, dependent on Chemistry, ed. and trans. by James Keir (London, 1771), vol. 1, p. 48.
58 J. Robison, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh by the late Joseph Black, 3 (Philadelphia, 1806), 81.
59 Ibid., p. 85.
60 W. Nicholson, A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemstry and the Arts, vols 1–4 (London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1797–1801). Landmarks II (New York: Readex Microprint Corporation, 1985?). Microfilm Collection, Media Commons, University of Toronto. The articles respectively: vol. 1, p. 40; vol. 1, p. 537; vol. 3, p. 108.
61 A. Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines: Containing a Clear Exposition of their Principles and Practice, 3rd edn (London: Longmans, 1843). Important references to soap, pp. 16, 49, 124, 129, 135, 136, 142, 143, 145, 194, 225, 242, 266, 351, 374, 387, 404, 453, 482, 577, 679, 884, 1024, 1032, 1095.
62 Robinson and McKie, letter 21, James Keir to James Watt, 14 December 1771, pp. 25–26.
63 This common base is sodium. For more on Duhamel and his (rather impractical) synthetic soda process, see Prof. Dittmar and J. Paton, ‘Sodium’, The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature, 22 (New York: The Henry G. Allen Company, 1890), 242; F. L. Holmes, Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise (Berkeley, CA: Office for the History of Science and Technology, 1989), pp. 96–101; and U. Klein and W. Lefèvre, Materials in Eighteenth-Century Science: A Historical Ontology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), p. 176.
64 Hills, p. 184. Roebuck partnered with Samuel Garbett in this sulphuric acid manufactory. Together they also founded the Carron Iron Works before Roebuck’s devastating bankruptcy. See Clow, pp. 93–95.
65 Robinson and McKie, letter 21, James Keir to James Watt, 14 December 1771, pp. 25–26.
66 Moilliet and Smith, p. 26.
67 Although not aware of the theoretical process, Keir would have been seeking to separate the alkali (potassium) from the sulphate or nitric pairings. Potassium nitrate was also commonly referred to as ‘saltpetre’. Keir must have been well acquainted with the substance as East Indies merchant and politician Hugh Inglis wrote a 1797 letter to the Royal Society President, Sir Joseph Banks, stating that he ‘took the liberty to leave at [...] [Banks’] Home Dr Keirs [sic] Natural History of Salt Petre and some other Articles which [...] [he hoped] may Afford [...] [Banks] some amusement’. The letter appears to be the only reference to the work, which is no longer extant. See N. Chambers, ed., The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768–1820, 4 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2008), 440. Saltpetre is also a crucial ingredient, along with sulphur and charcoal, in the production of gunpowder. Although it is pure speculation, Keir’s use of saltpetre in chemical investigations and his natural history of the substance may mean he dabbled in gunpowder production during the turn of the eighteenth century when military applications of the explosive would have been vital to English engagement in the Napoleonic Wars.
68 Robinson and McKie, letter 22, James Keir to James Watt, 27 February 1772, pp. 26–27.
69 It seems that the production of soda was Keir’s primary goal while at Stourbridge. T. Thomson tried to justify that soda was not inferior to potash and that in ‘the manufacture of soap and glass, it [soda] answers even better than potash’. See Thomson, p. 44.
70 Robinson and McKie, letter 21, James Keir to James Watt, 14 December 1771, pp. 25–26.
71 Anderson and Jones, letter 189, James Watt to Joseph Black, 15 October 1780, pp. 431–32.
72 Jones, p. 88.
73 Landes, p. 304.
74 Moilliet and Smith, p. 24.
75 See Landes, p. 342.
76 Gittins, p. 226.
77 ‘The Salt-Based Chemical Industry’, Salt Association. <http://saltassociation.co.uk> (accessed 15 September 2013). For a discussion of the potential confusion of Keir’s incoming waste sources, see Moilliet and Smith, pp. 31–32 and Gittins, p. 226.
78 S. Shaw, The History and Antiquities of Staffordshire, 2 (London: J. Nichols, 1798–1801), 137.
79 F. Szabadváry, History of Analytical Chemistry, trans. G. Svehla (London: Pergamon Press, 1966), pp. 198–99.
80 A. E. Musson, Enterprise in Soap and Chemicals: Joseph Crosfield & Sons, Limited, 1815–1965 (Manchester University Press, 1965), p. 25. Larry Stewart also highlights the importance of Keir, Wedgwood and Watt’s laboratories (or ‘workshops’) in conjunction with their industrial production. See L. Stewart, ‘Assistants to Enlightenment: William Lewis, Alexander Chisholm and Invisible Technicians in the Industrial Revolution’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 62.1 (2008), 25.
81 Stewart, p. 168.
82 Landes, p. 343.
83 Ibid.
84 Gittins, pp. 221–22.
85 Moilliet and Smith, p. 29.
86 M. G. Kim, Affinity, That Elusive Dream: A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), pp. 207–08.
87. T. H. Levere, Affinity and Matter: Elements of Chemical Philosophy, 1800–1865 (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 19.
88 A. Moilliet, Sketch, pp. 75–76.
89 J. L. Moilliet, ‘Keir’s Caustic Soda Process — an Attempted Reconstruction’, Chemistry and Industry (5 March 1966), p. 405; and A. Moilliet, Sketch, pp. 75–76.
90 A. Moilliet, Sketch, p. 76.
91 The process in chemical terms: Na2SO4 (or K2SO4) + Ca(OH)2 ↔ CaSO4 + 2NaOH (or 2 KOH). For an excellent modern chemical explanation of Keir’s process, see Moilliet, ‘Caustic Soda’, pp. 405–08. Moilliet likens Keir’s work to that of German chemists, Neumann and Karwat, in World War One. Their synthetic alkali production was conducted without knowledge of Keir’s process a century early and their experimental results allowed for a sufficient reconstruction of Keir’s alkali method.
92 Moilliet, ‘Caustic Soda’, p. 405.
93 This was the first step in the later successful Leblanc process. See Musson and Robinson, p. 364. The six patentees mentioned were Richard Shannon, Bryan Higgins, Alexander Fordyce (note that Fordyce was seen a threat to Keir’s initial researches in alkali and viewed as a plagiary by Watt — see Padley, p. 67), John Collison, James Gerard and A. B. de Boneuil. Several of these patentees invoked Joseph Black for advice on their processes. See Musson and Robinson, pp. 365–66. Note these English patents do not testify to parallel alkali investigations in France. For a discussion of the alkali work of l’Abbé Malherbe, Jean-Claude de La Métherie and Nicolas Leblanc in the late 1770s, see Szabadváry, p. 198; and Dittmar and Paton, p. 242.
94 Musson and Robinson, p. 365.
95 Moilliet and Smith, p. 29.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid. J. L. Moilliet calculated the probable weight ratio of sodium hydroxide (soda, NaOH) to sodium sulphate (Na2SO4) as 57:43. See Moilliet, ‘Caustic Soda’, p. 407.
98 Szabadváry, pp. 198–99.
99 Clow, p. 93.
100 For a description of why the Leblanc process took so long to be adopted in England, see Landes, p. 341.
101 Gittins, p. 225.
102 W. A. Smeaton, ‘The Lunar Society and Chemistry, A Conspectus’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 11 (1967), 55.
103 C. A. Russell, ed., Chemistry, Society and Environment: A New History of the British Chemical Industry (Cambridge: The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2000), p. 56.
104 A. Moilliet, Sketch, p. 76. Gittins assumes Keir was making soap before 1786 based on an excise and treasury letter from 1806 in which ‘James Keir & Co.’ claimed they had been soap makers for ‘upwards of twenty years’. See Gittins, pp. 226, 229.
105 Macquer, vol. 1, p. 45.
106 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 459.
107 Musson, Enterprise, pp. 22–23.
108 For samples of Keir’s soap bills, see Industrial Revolution, item 75 (1794 bill to Mr Leonard Tyson, grocer near Birmingham, via Boulton), item 78 (1798 bill to Boulton, including window sashes made from Keir’s metal), item 86 (1810 bill sent to Cheshire, Soho) and item 88 (1811 bill to Boulton, written on behalf of Keir by Mr John Edwards), part I, reel II.
109 Musson, Enterprise, p. 24.
110 Musson, Growth, p. 15.
111 Musson, Enterprise, p. 24.
112 Ibid.
113 Ibid., p. 23.
114 ‘Soap’, The Penny Cyclopædia of The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 22 (London: Charles Knight and Company, 1842), p. 169.
115 Macquer, vol. 2, p. 725.
116 Ure, p. 1147.
117 For further explanation of Keir’s employment of skilled workers, see Court, pp. 230–31; Shaw, vol. 2, p. 137; M. J. Wise, ‘The Influence of the Lunar Society in the Development of Birmingham’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 11 (1967/68), 89.
118 Shaw, vol. 2, p. 136.
119 These pounds refer to weight. Moilliet and Smith, p. 30.
120 Musson, Growth, p. 41. Musson explains how the average provincial soap works employed six men and had an average output of nineteen tons per year in 1785. I have converted the nineteen tons to pounds, using 1 ton = 2,240 pounds.
121 Moilliet and Smith, p. 32.
122 Ibid. Berger assumed Keir’s starting material was ‘muriate of soda’ or common sea salt. Either he was mistaken of Keir’s actual process using waste sulphates or perhaps Keir did attempt other soda processes using salt as a raw material.
123 For licensing and laws governing soap boilers, see J. Chitty, A Treatise on the Laws of Commerce and Manufactures and the Contracts relating thereto: with an appendix of treaties, statutes, and precedents, 2 (London, 1824), 418–20.
124 D. Dilworth, The Tame Mills of Staffordshire (London: Phillimore, 1976), p. 138.
125 For the requested payment, see Industrial Revolution, letter 3, James Keir (per John Nimmo) to Matthew Boulton and James Watt, 4 August 1798, part 14, reel 251, 3/414 General Correspondence, K 1795–98. We know the payment was received by a confirmation letter about a week later. See Industrial Revolution, letter 4, James Keir (per John Nimmo) to Matthew Boulton and James Watt, 10 August 1798, part 14, reel 251, 3/414 General Correspondence, K 1795–98.
126 This waste was primarily carbonate of lime (CaCO3), quicklime (CaO) and some alkali (sodium, Na, or potassium, K). See W. Newton, The London Journal of Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures and Repertory of Patent Inventions, 37 (London: Patent Office, 1850), pp. 250–51. No doubt Keir would have removed the alkali from the waste before selling the rest of the mixture. Ure surmises that such waste would be considerable at soap works across the country, see Ure, p. 1143.
127 For a brief report on its efficacy in Scotland and England, see J. Sinclair, Agricultural State, and Political Circumstances, of Scotland, 2 (Edinburgh: Abernethy & Walker, 1814), p. 541. See also Clow, p. 487.
128 Clow, p. 285.
129 D. Steel, Steel’s Tables of the British Custom and Excise Duties (London, 1799), p. 68.
130 See Moilliet and Smith, p. 18.
131 Smeaton, p. 55.
132 Court, p. 230. In his translation of Macquer’s Dictionnaire de chemie, Keir discussed white lead, including its use in painting and varnishing, as well its potential negative health effects. See Macquer, vol. 1, pp. 153, 305, 330, 374. Keir provided a supply of white lead to fellow Lunar Society member and potter, Josiah Wedgwood between 1789 and 1791. However, Schofield records that Wedgwood failed to reorder in 1792 causing Keir and Tom Wedgwood (Josiah’s son) to consult about the manufacturing and employment of the white lead. After some changes were made to the product and its use in pottery glaze, the orders were continued. The trouble with the lead seems to have arisen from Keir’s alternative method of production. It was not until 1806 that Keir patented his white lead process. See Schofield, Lunar Society of Birmingham, p. 341.
133 Court, p. 230 and Wise, p. 89. Red lead production was a meticulous and time-intensive process, which explains why Keir employed experienced soap and red lead workers. For the red lead process, see D. G. Edwards, ‘An Eighteenth Century Red Lead Production Record’, Bulletin of the Peak District Mines Historical Society, 12.4 (1994), 39–42.
134 Industrial Revolution, Patent 89, Specification of James Keir, Producing Compound Metals, 1779, part 1, reel 11.
135 Ibid., letter 77, James Keir to Matthew Boulton, January 1798, part 1, reel 11.
136 Moilliet, Sketch, p. 127.
137 ‘Japanning’ was a Japanese method of varnishing or lacquering ceramics. For a description of the British process, see Ure, p. 614.
138 R. E. Schofield, ‘The Lunar Society and the Industrial Revolution’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 11 (1967/68), 109.
139 J. Granger and W. Appleby, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Durham, particularly that part of it extending from the Tyne to the Tees; with observations on the means of its improvement (London: Colin Macrae, 1794), p. 16. This reference was brought to my attention in L. Tomory, Progressive Enlightenment: The Origins of the Gaslight Industry, 1780–1820 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), p. 42.
140 Robinson and McKie, letter 22, James Keir to James Watt, 27 February 1772, pp. 26–27.
141 Moilliet and Smith, p. 17.
142 Ibid., p. 17. Wedgwood took particular interest in expanding the Trent-Mersey canal system. See Uglow.
143 Dilworth, p. 138.
144 Anon., ‘Reply to the Reasons offered by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Company against the proposed extension’ (Wolverhampton? 1785), pp. 1–2.
145 T. J. Raybould, The Economic Emergence of the Black Country: A Study of the Dudley Estate (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973), p. 55.
146 Industrial Revolution, item 75 (1794 bill to Mr Leonard Tyson, grocer near Birmingham, via Boulton) and item 88 (1811 bill to Boulton, written on behalf of Keir by Mr John Edwards), part I, reel II.
147 Landes, p. 280.
148 Raybould, p. 55.
149 Dilworth, pp. 138–39.
150 Oxford English Dictionary, ‘water wheel’, specifically the first and second definitions.
151 Court, p. 230. For a discussion of the use of water wheels and fire engines in an early eighteenth-century Derby silk industry, see P. A. Elliott, The Derby Philosophers: Science and Culture in British Urban Society, 1700–1850 (Manchester University Press and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 37–39.
152 Landes, p. 328.
153 Musson, Growth, pp. 31, 33.
154 Court, p. 164.
155 Shaw, vol. 2, p. 136.
156 Ibid.
157 W. Pitt, A Topographical History of Staffordshire (Newcastle-Under-Lyme: J. Smith, 1817), p. 160.
158 Other products from Keir’s works also required coal furnaces. Keir’s compound metal, used in Boulton’s Soho windows, required a smelting process in a ‘melting furnace’. See Industrial Revolution, Patent 89, Specification of James Keir, Producing Compound Metals, 1779, part I, reel II. As well, red lead production often required a furnace to be heated for three days. See Edwards, pp. 39–42.
159 Moilliet, ‘Caustic Soda’, p. 408.
160 Court, p. 230.
161 J. Solly, ‘No. 56 — James Keir’, The Midland Antiquary, 4.13 (1885), 3.
162 William Playfair’s partnership with Keir and Blair at the Tipton works began around 1783, after the former had a falling out with Boulton and Watt. Soon after this, William disagreed with Keir about metal patent rights and left Tipton. J. L. Moilliet and Smith assume the 1794 partnership with ‘Playfair’ must have meant William but Elwell’s reference to a ‘geologist’ certainly means John Playfair. See Moilliet and Smith, pp. 29–30 and C. J. L. Elwell, ‘The Ingenious Mr Keir of West Bromwich’, extract from The Black Countryman, 12.4 (1979), <http://www.moilliet.ws/Ingenious_Keir.pdf> (accessed 15 September 2013).
163 Industrial Revolution, letter 1, James Keir to James Watt, Jr, 2 July 1795, part 14, reel 251, 3/414 General Correspondence, K 1795–98. This event is quite humorous, as Keir declined a chance to speak with the very author of Mineralogy, a meeting that could have benefited his recent investment in mining.
164 This connection between chemistry and mineralogy was especially predominant in Germany and Sweden. See U. Klein, ‘Not a Pure Science: Chemistry in the 18th and 19th Centuries’, Science, new series 306.5698 (2004), 981.
165 Schofield, p. 373.
166 Industrial Revolution, letter 76, James Keir to Matthew Boulton, 30 December 1797, part I, reel II.
167 The bed was about ten yards thick. J. Keir, ‘Mineralogy of the South-west part of Staffordshire’, in Shaw, vol. 1, pp. 116–25.
168 M. M. Dick, ‘Discourses for the New Industrial World: Industrialisation and the Education of the Public in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain’, History of Education, 37.4 (July), 576.
169 Ibid. Dick’s essay uses Anna Seward as an excellent foil to contrast Keir and Boulton’s somewhat romanticized view of industry, wealth and resources. Seward was a poetess and authoress connected to the Lunar Society through her family’s friendship with Erasmus Darwin at Lichfield. She exposed the downside of industrialization, including the conditions of workers in the coal mines and the negative impact of industrialization on the natural environment.