The Early Industrialists in Flintshire

caution !! this is an initial draft ... these notes are on my server for safe keeping !!

 

 

 

 

The 'industrial revolution' was an explosion of change and famously involved Lancashire cotton & calico, Yorkshire wool & worsted, Cheshire salt & silk, Staffordshire pottery & porcelain, Coalbrookdale pots & pans and Soho steam & engines ... but other activities in Flintshire must be included - lead, copper, iron & zinc smelting and coal ... all added impetus to the development of the Dee wharfs & the port of liverpool ... and all touched the industrial development of rural Cheshire at acton bridge.

There were no mines and no smelting at Acton Bridge but there was water power, river transport and intimate trade connections with the Flintshire entrepreneurs via the Liverpool merchants -

1734 - no doubt, up the river Weaver, for the Northwich salt pans, came lead from Gadlys?

1781 - Daniel Whittaker surveyed the site at Acton Bridge for his prospective cotton mill 3 years before his investment in The Greenfield Valley!

1800 - the Weaver blacksmith at his puddled iron forge used pig iron from Bersham?

1835 - John Budd's new zinc printing cylinder technology directly confronted John Williams' established copper cylinder business at Holywell!

1843 - John Budd's zinc rolling mill used spelter from Crockford's works at Greenfield?

1882 - when the water power disappeared, up the Weaver came coal for the steam engines ... coal from St Helens ... and Flintshire?

... Acton Bridge was in the thick of it ...

Some Flintshire perspective comes from the chronology of the first factories of the industrial revolution -

1702 - Baptist Mills and the Bristol Brass Company; William Champion from Bristol moved to Flintshire

1704 - Gadlys and the London Lead Company; John Freame from London invested in Flintshire

1706 - Coalbrookdale and the first blast furnaces; Abraham Darby's son in law from Bristol invested in his technology at Bersham, nr Flintshire

1717 - Cheadle Brass & Copper Company; Thomas Barker & Thomas Patten from Warrington moves into Greenfield

... Flintshire was in the thick of it ... why?

Flintshire, the torrents of St Winefride & the Liverpool Port were exciting places in the 18th & 19th Centuries -

In 1798 Richard Warner in 'A second walk through Wales' described the scene -

HOLYWELL - There we quickly saw marks of the considerable manufactures carried on there, in the employment of the women and children, who were sitting at the doors of the cottages, picking and preparing cotton for the mills in the neighbourhood of the town. Its wonder working Well rendered it a place of notoriety in former times, and its numerous manufactories and valuable mines stamp it with much more real importance in the present day. The spring has for some years been made subservient to much wiser, and more important, purposes than the superstitious uses to which it was formerly dedicated. In the short course of little more than a mile from its first appearance out of the rock the torrent works one large corn-mill, four cotton manufactories under the firm of the Holywell Cotton Twist Company, a copper and brass work, one under the firm of the Mona Mine Company, the other under that of the Parys Mine Company, hammer mills, where copper, brewing, and other vessels are manufactured, a mill for drawing off copper wire, a calcinary of calamine, and a building for making brass.
With all the noise, bustle, and appearance of business produced by these numerous manufactories, the little valley in which they stand may yet be called a picturesque scene, the only instance of that sort of beauty we had ever seen, blended with so much mechanism, and so many specimens of human art.
We began our tour of the manufactories with a visit to the great cotton works. This is an extensive and elegant building, erected about twenty years ago, in which the raw cotton, being first cleansed and picked, is spun into thread of a texture superior to all other brought to the market. For this excellence it is indebted to the copious stream that works the mill, which, not being affected by drought, floods, or frosts, always applies to the great wheel that moves the whole machine the same equal invariable power. The cotton work, till within these few years, employed one thousand people, but the same paralyzing effects of war have been produced here as in the other manufactories throughout the kingdom, by the reduction of their number to five hundred women and children. In this work the cotton, after having been previously picked by the poor of the town, is reduced to thread, being thrice carded, thrice roven, and once spun. The process is performed by the improved cotton machine, a stupendous piece of mechanism, the first view of which irresistibly impresses the mind with the idea of magic; here thirty or forty thousand wheels and spindles are seen moving in the most rapid manner, without any perceptible cause, spontaneously performing operations of the most curious nature, and in the most systematic, manner.
Nothing that we had seen, indeed, before, gave us so exalted a notion of human ingenuity as the work before us; of the extraordinary mechanical powers of that mind which could conceive, design, and bring to perfection, so vast and so complicated a machine as the cotton mills of Sir Richard Arkwright.
We next proceeded to the brass works where this compound metal is formed, and afterwards manufactured. The calamine used in its composition is brought from the great mines which cover the top of Pen-y-Bawn, being first roasted in order to divest it of the sulphur, with which, in the raw state, it is combined. It is then cleansed and separated from the lead also, which always accompanies it, and undergoes the process of calcination. A pounding mill next receives it, where a quantity of ground charcoal is mixed, and pounded with it. This compound is afterwards put into a crucible, containing alternately a layer of this compound, and another of small masses of copper, then the copper becomes completely united with the zinc, and the brass is produced. The plates procured by this process are oblong masses of metal, about fifteen inches long, eight broad, and two and half thick. These being baked, or made red hot in order to render them malleable, are placed between cylindrical rollers of immense pressure. Entering on one side in their original size and form, they are delivered on the other reduced in thickness to about half an inch, and increased proportionally in longitudinal extension. Again they are heated, and again pass through the cylindrical rollers, the process being repeated till the plates are reduced to the thickness required by the manufacturer.
These works are chiefly employed at present in making articles for the African Company, such as broad shallow pans for the procuring of salt from saltwater by evaporation, and manillas, small baubles, somewhat resembling a horseshoe in shape, between two and three inches in diameter, disposed of to the Africans, and by them used as current coin, being strung on a copper wire and worn round their waists.
Exclusive of these foreign articles, large pans and smaller utensils are made for the English market. The great vessels are formed out of fiat sheets of brass of a circular form, (cut to that shape by steel scissors worked by water) and a proper thickness, by being subjected to the action of heavy hammers worked by the same power, which beat upon them with such astonishing velocity as to give from one to eight hundred strokes in a minute. The utensil is held the while by a workman who sits at the side of the battering hammer, and continues moving it under the blows of the engine, till it has assumed the form required. A small peg then stops the motion of the waterwheel, the hammer loses its power in a moment, the intonations cease, and all is quiet and silent.
Quitting the brass works, we visited the copper mills, where the pigs of copper brought from Swansea and Stanley are again melted, cast into plates, reduced to the proper thickness, and cut to the requisite size by means similar to those made use of in the manufactory just described. It may only be observed, that the plates of copper are polished by the action of the cylindrical rollers, which give them in passing a most smooth and bright appearance.
This manufactory is chiefly occupied in preparing copper sheets for sheathing ships of war, and a large order is now getting ready for America. Most of the maritime powers have adopted this admirable method of defending their marine from the depredations of the worm but all differ with respect to the size and weight of the plates they use, Spain taking the largest, America the second size, and England the smallest. The copper nails, also, which fasten the sheets to the bottom of the vessel, and the great bolts of the same metal used in building men of war, are manufactured at the works of Holywell.
A Visit to the wire mills, where slips of copper are drawn into strings of any given thickness, by the action of an engine. that pulls them through holes bored in iron plates, concluded a survey of the most interesting, amusing, and instructive nature. The number of manufacturers employed in these works are about 600.

In 1860 'A Guide through North Wales, including Anglesey, Caernarvonshire' by William Cathrall & Andrew Crombie Ramsay added some detail -   

FLINTSHIRE - That portion of this county which commences at the western limits of the main limestone range, near to Prestatyn and the Point of Air, at the mouth of the river Dee, and which passes near Holywell and Halkin to the district of Mold, forms the most important lead-mining district in North Wales. Commencing at Holywell, near to the celebrated Well, and taking a course almost due south, and passing Mold into Denbighshire, there has been traced an extraordinary mass of rock, termed a fault or slide, varying in width from 1 yard to 10 yards. This fault is called the 'Gallop', from the comparative straightness of its course. It intersects all the lead lodes, disturbing their stratification, and in some cases absorbing them altogether. This somewhat remarkable geological feature is the more interesting, from it being supposed to act as a natural drainage to the line of country through which it passes, and is most probably the main cause of the enormous flow of water at the famous Well of St. Winefride, at Holywell. Lead ores (galena, lead sulphide), mixed with zinc ores (blende or sphalerite, zinc sulphide) lie in the veins, zinc carbonate (calamine) is not found in carboniferous limestone.
Probably the oldest and most valuable mine in Flintshire is that of Talargoch, at present returning from 100 to 150 tons of lead ore monthly. Some years ago more than double this quantity was sampled from the mine. The engine house attached to it forms a conspicuous object from the Chester and Holyhead Railway, near Prestatyn. Talacre, the next mine, has yielded considerable quantities of lead ore, but at present its monthly returns are comparatively small. This mine is named after the seat of Sir Pyers Mostyn, on whose property it is situated. At Holywell is the celebrated Holywell Level Mine. The levels can be reached only in a boat, which is pushed by the miners through an adit or tunnel some hundred yards in length. The returns of ore from this mine have been enormous, and are still large. At Halkin is the celebrated Pant-y-go Mine, now exhausted, but from which the Grosvenor family realised, it is understood, more than half a million sterling profit. Rhosesmor mine now returns more than 100 tons of lead ore monthly, and from surveys made it is likely that the yield will be increased. Near Mold, westward, are Mount Pleasant, Maesysafn, and Westminster mines, all still productive and rich. From the Talargoch to the Westminster hundreds of other mines have been profitably worked, and in all directions, especially near Holywell, may at present be seen 'small ventures' made by the mining population. The sales of lead ore from the county are held fortnightly at Holywell, at the principal hotel; at each sale from 150 to 700 tons of lead ore are disposed of. The smelting firms represented at these sales have their works on the banks of the river Dee. Mr Eyton possesses extensive works near Mostyn - Messrs Courage and Co at the Upper Mills, Dee Bank, Bagillt - Messrs Walker, Parker and Co, also at Dee Bank - Messrs Newton, Keates and Co, at Bagillt.
The first lead smelting works on the Dee were established at Gadlys, near Bagillt, but were removed nearly 100 years ago, to the Upper Mills, now occupied by Messrs Courage. At the latter works the lead ore is smelted into pigs, and after being de-silverized the lead is manufactured into sheets, pipes, litharge, and red lead, all of which find a ready market at Liverpool. Frequently masses of silver, called cakes, are refined to the utmost purity, and they occasionally weigh from 2,000 to 5,000 ozs each cake. From Holywell to Greenfield there is a succession of mills and manufactories, employing the enormous water power arising from the overflow of the Well in its passage and fall to the Dee. This valuable watercourse affords power to two corn-mills, a brewery, two large flannel (formerly cotton) mills, a limestone crushing mill, an extensive paper mill, and also the large works for copper rolling of Messrs Newton, Keates and Co, copper smelters. At Greenfield there are spelter or zinc mills, and at Dee Bank Messrs Courage also manufacture spelter on a large scale.
The coal measures from Mostyn to Flint are extensive and productive, their extent inland varying much with the run of the limestone formation; but they are found to extend under the Dee to a considerable distance. At Englefield, Coleshill, and Bagillt, there are other collieries in profitable operation. At Holywell and Halkin are quarries of hydraulic and common limestone, also of cement stone, these all form a branch of lucrative trade with Liverpool.

But who were these entrepreneurs and their companies who fashioned this revolution in Flintshire and Liverpool?

Lead & Gadlys ...

Lead with a melting point of only 327°C was relatively easy to recover, little more than a camp fire was needed. The metal was highly malleable, ductile and noncorrosive, being particularly useful for water pipes, roofing ... and salt pans. 

The London Lead Company was formed from a merger of Royal Mines Copper, The Ryton Company  & The Governor Company for Smelting Down Lead with Pit Coal and Sea Coal.  Often called 'The Quaker Company' they owned the Gadlys Lead Smelting Works and were smelting at Gadlys from 1704 to 1799. 

In 1700 Flintshire was rural, it seemed not much had changed ... ever ... it didn't really have a middle class, just farmers and crafts. The local farmers made extra bucks from digging the odd bell pit and flogging the lead ores of Halkyn Mountain in the Holywell markets. Since before Roman times charcoal smelting had been practised on the mountain, it was a primitive affair, but lead was lead, and always in demand. Then the big guns came in from London, they had capital for pioneering investment and large scale risk. Flintshire mining and smelting became a model for the later rush of the industrial revolution. The mines got deeper and coal was used for smelting.

The pressure for industrial smelting came from a shortage of charcoal, local coal was available but coal required new furnace technology to indirectly heat the ore. Dr Edward Wright (-1728) and a group of London Quakers formed the Royal Mines Copper by Royal Charter initially in 1693 in Cumbria and then in Flintshire in 1695, they started smelting at Gadlys in 1704.

Capital was at risk ... poor unproductive leases, unproven technology, atrocious roads, incessant tribulations with war & pollution ... all added to the problems of wood shortages, flooding of the mines, remote customers and transport difficulties ... and all the time the threat of competition from imports ... and all before mentioning the parasites & predators intent on stealing and moral decay ... tippling, fighting, night rambling, foul language & other mischief ... immoral idleness ...

john freame organised the capital needed for investment in scale, Edward Wright organised the improved the reverberatory furnace technology to enable smelting with coal. This was a proud achievement, large scale capital investment by London merchants in risky new technology pursued by entrepreneurs with know how. As John Brunner & Ludwig Mond confirmed many years later at Winnington the industrial revolution required a traumatic marriage of expertise in capital investment & innovative technology ...

The Quaker Company was one of the first to solved the problems of separation of ownership & control of high technology and large scale. Their methods were instructive -

seizing the new opportunities which followed the 1688 revolution and the confidence that profits would no longer be confiscated by 'rent seeking' Bishops, Princes, Generals nor bureaucrats ...

raising the efficiency of diverse units employing innovative and developing technology by spreading best practice quickly

regular audits of financial and technical performance by trusted experts of identifiable sub units with standardised comparative measurements ... output, waste, quality, costs, stocks, cash ... 

investment in human capital securing commitment & loyalty through education, training and well paid jobs with security & perquisites ...

Sidney Pollard recounts that in 1774 the company resolved that, 'the ore from the company mines and from each mine be kept in separate Bing steads at the several mills; and also the bought ore likewise separate of them' ... this trouble was taken to help management decisions; which department to expand, which to reform and which to close down ...

specialisation & scale necessarily involved delegation and delegation required management ...

Not a Welshman in sight, the only locals were underground digging? But The Quakers, like the local Methodists instilled in the folk of Gadlys, Bagillt, Flint and Holywell a culture of hard work, honesty and thrift together with a deep respect for any business success which resulted from investment in risky innovation. The men at Gadlys were risking hard earned capital into something different ... reverberatory furnaces and coal. The business success was invigorating in a community familiar with the dominance of land as the only source of wealth ... there were now new jobs to be had ... for sure the work was hard and unhealthy ... but a job was a job, the babies needed feeding.

The Ryton Co, on Tyneside, was also successfully smelting lead from coal but important patents were held by The Governor Company which had crashed and become defunct. The Royal Mines Copper, The Ryton Co & The Governor Company for Smelting Down Lead with Pit Coal and Sea Coal were amalgamated as a joint stock charter company in 1706. London Lead Company or The Quaker Company or The London (Quaker) Lead Company was less of a mouthful.

Chester, then Frodsham and Sankey were initially export shipping ports but from 1500 and the voyages of discovery, the deep water docks at Liverpool became busier and busier ... by 1715 imports were flowing bigtime ... it seemed the odds were stacked against The London Lead Company ... but at least in the early years it was a very profitable business.

Initially the smelting impetus came from local coal but this immediately produced a sulphur pollution problem, and how the local community suffered ... but eventually ingenuity turned acid rains into valuable by products as the early pioneers solved the problems of pollution by profitable production of sulphuric acid which began to power much of the chemical industry.

When the South Sea bubble burst in 1720 a perverse consequence was that The Royal Mines Copper was forced to justify their charter. That was easy. The London Lead Company was not a speculative con trick, they had real assets, making real money, through successful patentable technological innovation ... they survived all slumps in good nick, and investors queued up to join the action!

In 1728 Edward Wright died and a generation of successful enterprise came to an end. James Creed took over on Wright's recommendation. James had impeccable credentials, a fellow of The Royal Society and a Director of The East India Company. The Barker family, as on site managing agents, were superb. Good staff were always an essential part of enterprise. The Barkers were not Quakers but they were paid well, they were efficient managers. Their accounts were 'audited' by a trusted Quaker, Abraham Watson who managed the northern mines. The agent/principle problem always needed constant attention. In 1728, when starvation was a real threat after poor harvests, the London investors shipped in food supplies ... corn, barley, wheat, and oats were available for the smelters in Gadlys. Starving miners were no use to man nor beast, this was good business practice.

In the early 1730s fortune began to turn, business was a constant struggle. Creed was replaced and a new General Court of shareholders was elected. Old man Thomas Barker died in 1725 and the competent sons took over a thriving business but growth had bought more complexity and the mines proliferated and inevitably became deeper and further removed from Gadlys ... diminishing returns set in ... labour became expensive ... thieving was rife ... more collieries were added and more shareholders were pressing for more growth ... balancing the accounts became too complex for Thomas Barker and delayed reporting meant delayed dividends ... nothing specific just difficulties ... problems of success and the essential need for ongoing technological innovation in the face of competition ... lawsuits and the blame game followed ... reports were now full of the glowing prospects for next year rather than the previous catalogues of last years successes ... competitive advantage was always slender and temporary ... and when Thomas Barker resigned in 1733 claiming gout and a sore throat, the extent of his private competitive interests were uncovered, including involvement with the famous Cheadle Brass & Copper Company in partnership with Thomas Patten of Warrington. However it seemed relationships with Gadlys remained good and some contract work followed. Thomas' young brother Anthony took over Gadlys in 1733.

Flooding of the mines was perpetual and investment in Newcomen's 'fire engines' started in 1733. The engines arrived in Trelogan and Gadlys from London at considerable expense, but they were considered a 'life saving' investment.

Transport was difficult. The mine at Llangunog was an impossible 40 miles from Gadlys and capital was 'wasted' on a new smelting works at Coalbrookdale ... in 1735 Llangunog was closed ...

The baleful influence of taxation continued ... unintended consequences of a canalised Dee resulted in a levy on Bagillt lead which did not need access to Chester ... the lead brokers had found a profitable distribution niche using lead as ballast on the Parkgate cheese ships ...

Eventually the Irish silver mines were closed in 1738 in an atmosphere of retrenchment.

In 1739 the company won a court case against the estates of the old Court of Assistants for 'unwarranted' loans by the Company to individual investors in the South Sea Bubble. From this windfall the company recovered its poise and paid continuous dividends from 1743 to 1800. In 1731 John Freame became Deputy Governor, John was a financial wizard ... he invested in gilts during good times and borrowed to pay the divi in bad times ... the London Lead Company became a gilt edged stock. Silver 'cakes' were refined to purity, John Freame knew about bullion! John died in 1745 but his son Joseph kept the bandwagon rolling.

Wars were again disruptive for trade ...

Fresh attempts to mine in the Isle of Man came to nought, repeating Edward Wright's success proved impossible and in April 1772 The Duke of Atholl generously purchased the Company's interest ... more accounting foibles at Gadlys were revealed and it seemed the capital employed would have been better invested in securities on the market exchanges ...

Gadlys had started smelting with reverberatory furnaces from 1704, robust production lasted until 1786. In 1796 Thomas Pennant reported that the furnaces at Gadlys were pulled down in 1786 and production moved to the Alfred Courage site at Upper Mills Bagillt, built by Messrs Smedley on the bank above the Dee? There the lead was desilverised and processed into sheets, pipes, litharge and red lead which still found ready markets through the brokers in Liverpool ...

The mines in Wales were sold on the 13th of September 1792 to a Mr John Griffiths for a modest £700 ... the affair was finally settled in 1799 ... hopes were higher on Alston Moor? ...

For sure many others had a go at making things work, and many were profitable ... folk like William Champion and John Budd continued to innovate and their zinc technology gave the industry a fillip ... James Watt's improved engines helped keep the mines dry and great technology bored the Milwr Tunnel to the Dee at Bagillt ... but as Liverpool thrived, slowly comparative advantage ebbed away from Flintshire and more and more lead was imported from abroad in exchange for the new technology of engines and tunnels which was more productively employed overseas ... and above all bankers like john freame earned the trust and capacity to deploy capital where ever and when ever profitable opportunities arose ... and that was no longer in Flintshire ... such was the relentless change associated with Ricardian comparative advantage and Darwinian adaptation ...

Copper & Holywell ...

Bronze an alloy of copper & tin (88/12) was known in Cheshire from around 1500 BC. Copper ores were found in abundance in Parys Mountain, Anglesey and some in the Great Orme. Cassiterite, tin oxide, SnO2 was found in Cornwall. Copper & tin were amongst the first metals to be exploited because their extraction from their ores was relatively easy. The ores could be smelted with wood and charcoal at relatively low temperatures, copper at 1083°C, tin at 1200°C. Bronze had a significant impact on history because it could take an edge and was hard enough to make weapons which were heavier, stronger, and more resistant to impact damage than their wood, bone or stone equivalents. It was also used for all sorts of tools and household utensils - chisels, saws, nails, shears, knives, needles, pins, jugs, pots, cauldrons, mirrors, horse harnesses and much more.

Brass a mixture of copper & zinc (70/30) was smelted by the Romans from mixed ores and was known to Babylonians and even zinc metal was made in India way back. The Romans used brass for the production of 'gold' coins and the especially prestigious golden coloured helmets.

The copper mining centres were in Cornwall & Anglesey, with a significant concentration of smelting in Swansea, where good quality coal was at hand.

bristol became a centre for 'calamine brass' in the early 18th century. In Flintshire after extraction of the more valuable lead, brass was obtained from calcining the residual zinc blende ores and heating the mixture with copper and charcoal to produce the alloy.

Thomas Patten (1690-1772) established a family copper smelting works at Bank Quay, Warrington in 1717 bringing copper by boat from Ireland, Cornwall and Anglesey directly to the works. The Patten family had arrived in Warrington in 1536, and by the middle of the 17th century had settled in Patten Lane, off Bridge Street, as merchants dealing in a wide range of commodities including tobacco, sugar and tea.

Patten was also involved with, a brass foundry in Cheadle on the Staffordshire coalfields. The Cheadle company originated in the Brookhouses area of Cheadle in 1719 and Thomas Patten formed The Cheadle Brass & Copper Company in 1734. Thomas Patten & Co transferred production to the Oakamoor area 100 years later.

Thomas Barker (-1739) probably alerted Patten to the attractions of Greenfield as Barker was a partner in the Cheadle activities before he left Gadlys in 1733. Maybe it was the potential of this company to participate in the rise of the Liverpool slave trade which led him to leave lead for brass & copper?

From 1750 zinc ores were engrossed at Holywell and in 1765 calamine was processed to service the brass industry in Cheadle (and Macclesfield). In 1755 much the same partners founded the 'Warrington Company' to operate the Greenfield factories. In 1765 the company opened the first and the biggest mill site in the Greenfield Valley when they opened The Battery Pool and four brass & copper mills.

By 1772 the company opened a new smelter at Stanley, St Helens, and in 1790 they set up a smelting works on the coalfield between Swansea and Llanelly at Penclawdd. They were followed into Swansea 5 years later by the famous Bristol Brass & Copper Company.

In 1851 the Patten company was purchased by Thomas Bolton of Birmingham. In 1892 Bolton’s opened a factory at Froghall, in North Staffordshire for the production of high conductivity copper for telegraphy and electrical generators. The Oakamoor works were eventually closed in 1963.

The Pattens realised the importance of the river Mersey and were responsible for making it navigable from Runcorn to Bank Quay, enabling Warrington to be used as a key distribution point for inland trade. The proximity of the Lancashire coal fields was also relevant - 1 ton of copper required 10 tons of ore and approximately 30 tons of coal ... Cheadle, St Helens & Swansea were all close to coal ... factory smelting location became a 'no brainer' ... but the Greenfield site was attractive for water power for the battery mills and also proximity to the Liverpool trade, and not because of Flintshire coal which was relatively expensive; small deep seams and liable to flooding ... sea and canal transport costs were constantly in the Patten calculations which involved Anglesey ore, St Helens coal, Greenfield batteries and Liverpool trade ... 

This trade was so successful that by the mid 18th century the local merchants had become important members of the landed gentry. By 1750 Thomas was able to commission James Gibbs to build the fine country house in Warrington - Bank Hall.

The Patten fortune was largely built on the infamous slave trade as their works produced copper bangles & nicknacks which traded for slaves in Africa and also the great coppers used to boil sugar and distil rum in the West Indies.

Thomas Williams (1737-1802) was even more successful than Patten and became the World No 1 in copper. His copper was originally mined in Anglesey and in 1774 he founded the Parys Mine Company, a vertically integrated company which involved taking the ore to Swansea and Ravenhead, St Helens for smelting.

Thomas saw the advantage of water power in the Greenfield Valley and, of course, the Holywell stream already hosted several extensive copper mills.

In 1781 Thomas established his manufacturing operations in the valley, the first copper forge, wire & rolling mill was erected for rolling sheet copper. In 1783 they erected another, the Hammer Mill, for the manufacture of copper vessels. The sheets, vessels, pots & pans were produced at both the Greenfield Battery Mill and later the Meadow Mill ...

The copper ingots came to the valley to be made into items for the slave trade, but more importantly, into copper sheets and bolts. The sheets were famously used for cladding wooden ships and prevented the torada worm from eating into the hull and causing the bottom of the ship to fall out. Corrosion problems with iron bolts was the spur for Thomas to invent special copper bolts to secure the sheets to the hulls of the ships. The bolts were made to a secret formula and manufactured under a patent which many countries tried to steal. Both the Royal and merchant navy had copper bottomed ships and it was suggested that this practice made the ships faster and more manoeuvrable at Trafalgar, giving Nelson his victory. The royal dockyards were supplied with copper sheathing and rudder bands, prior to the establishment of similar works by government at Portsmouth. Copper sheets from the hull of HMS Victory can be seen at the museum in the Greenfield Heritage Park.

By 1785 it was clear that Williams was extraordinarily successful. Technical expertise, aggressive selling, diversification, rationalisation and a stream of innovative products ensured continuing success after the African trade was pulled. The works of Thomas Williams were the only ones to come close to fulfilling all three smelting criteria of ease of access to ore, coal and the consumer ... he mined close to the Amlwch Port, he smelted on the coalfields, he manufactured by water power, he shipped via coast, river and canal to his customers in Liverpool without transhipment ...

In 1785 Thomas Williams set about securing his dominant position in the industry when he formed a new group of companies which included The Greenfield Copper & Brass Company which purchased the existing copper processing operations of The Warrington Company.  A significant partner was John Wilkinson, from Bersham, who started to supply robust iron water wheels for the Greenfield mills.

Thomas also bought into the mines on the other half of Parys Mountain owned by Nicholas Bayley, Lord Uxbridge and formed the Mona Mining Company in 1785. The Lord was in financial difficulties as a result of Thomas' competitive success and no doubt welcomed him as a partner.

A second smelting operation at Stanley, St Helens resulted from a take over the Warrington Company ... more incestuous intrigue amongst these pioneers ...

Later in 1786 after Patten's death, Thomas also purchased the Cheadle Brass & Copper Company ...

In 1788 the new Meadow Mill was erected by The Greenfield Copper & Brass Company. An extensive building which also manufactured copper cylinders under a patent, which after being engraved with various patterns were used in the printing of calicos & muslins. This was the technology which was under competitive threat in 1835 from John Budd's zinc cylinders which were manufactured at Acton Bridge, on the River Weaver ...

In 1806 a new mill was erected for drawing copper wire, which was manufactured into copper nails and spikes for the government. But there were changes in production techniques as power hungry battery of copper & brass was replaced by the introduction of casting. By 1815, some 13 years after Williams' death the two copper smelters at St Helens were closed down as a result of the decline in output from the two Anglesey mines, and competition from South Wales as Swansea began to specialise in shipment of imported ores from Chile. There was also trouble with the Dee silt and the Greenfield wharf became problematical for 40/50 ton vessels at a time when bigger vessels were increasingly used. And on it went, the collieries were flooding, steam engines became an economical source of power and Muntz metal from Birmingham was a better bet for the sheathing of ships  ... and after the defeat of Napoleon even the navy order book declined. The Williams works changed hands and persevered but the halcyon days were over ... the Williams family finally withdrew in 1825 as John Bibby, Sons & Co and Chilean imports became unstoppable ...

These several mills of the Greenfield Valley, all of which were worked by the same stream, formed conspicuous and extensive structures throughout the valley, in their prime more than 1000 tons of copper were annually manufactured and more than 100 persons were constantly employed.

There were, of course, also mills for rolling sheet lead and for casting and drawing patent lead pipes, and for the manufacture of white and red lead ...

The copper mills were eventually closed but somewhat later than the cotton mills ...

Cotton & The Greenfield Valley ...

The Greenfield Valley runs a mile or so from St Winefride's well in Holywell to the Dee estuary at Greenfield. The monks of Basingwerk were the first to harness the water power and after the dissolution milling continued and by 1700 the mill count was 3 corn, 2 fulling & 2 snuff with a lime kiln and malt kiln also operational. Through marriage, purchase and, no doubt, intrigue the land ownership from Holywell to Bryn Celyn was consolidated into the estate of the Pennants of Bagillt and the remainder down to Greenfield was owned by the Mostyns of Talacre.

As early as 1590 a lead smelting works had been established in the valley by a couple of London merchants, Samuel Fleet & William Radcliff. But this led to foul fumes and acid decimation of the local vegetation and an angry mob who closed down this initial foray of foreign capital into idyllic Greenfield. The return to relative tranquillity was tempered only by the presence of the inevitable iron forge. As at Acton Bridge, among the first to welcome water power were the local blacksmiths.

From the early days of industrialisation the reliable water flow powered a variety of mills, with a series of dams stepping down the steep sided valley enabling the factories to tap the available perpetual motion ... and with the help of flushing pools, the focused flow formed a natural creek through the silts of the Dee for shipping ...

By 1710 a red lead mill was operating in the valley, and then came a flood of outside investors, Robert Piggot (Earl Grosvenor's Steward), Benjamin Perrin & Robert Smedley all involved. Thomas Hart of Newcastle under Lyme opened a wire mill. The Barkers and James Creed from Gadlys, Jonathan Robinson from Chester, John Hall owner of the old forge were associated with a range of factory operations involved in wool, lead, copper, brass, wire, pins ... and cotton & paper  ...

Interestingly in 1730 lead smelting once again generated confrontations with the local landowners as the Mostyns tried to retrieve the green leaves from their trees & vegetation via the local courts.

The Greenfield Valley was attracting entrepreneurs and capitalists like a magnet. The overall ambiance was one of investment risk & rewards from an incestuous groups of outside entrepreneurs, many of them Quakers, all wheeling and dealing for mutual advantage but many of them experiencing the heartbreak of the all too regular bankruptcies. The same names crop up again and again ... there was money to be made in the Greenfield Valley and it was easy to see why -

- water power from a fall of 200 ft in 1½ miles
- Liverpool was only 2½ hours sailing time away and Africa & America beckoned
- Bristol, Plymouth, London & Ireland were within reach directly from the Dee wharfs
- lead, silver, zinc, lime and coal were all close at hand
- a community of London merchants and Quakers provided a trusting network of fellow investors, typically the Liverpool merchants went into Lancashire coal and Cheshire salt ...

The Flintshire Record Office, D/DM/299/6, detailed an important cotton project from 1785 -

Co-partnership indenture 1 January 1785
(i) Thomas Douglas of Grantham, co. Lincoln, esq.
(ii) William Douglas of Pendleton, co. Lancaster, merchant.
(iii) Daniel Whittaker of Manchester, co. Lancaster, merchant.
(iv) Elizabeth Smalley of Holywell, co. Flint, widow.
(v) Peter Atherton, late of London, but now of Holywell, merchant.
Assignment by (i) - (iv) to (v) of one fifth share in messuages, cottages, lately erected cotton mill, lately erected corn mill and other buildings and lands, weirs, mill-ponds, banks, mill-races, streams and watercourses, and one fifth share in buildings formerly called the Upper Paper Mill, and in land called the lower part of the Long Meadow, and an 18 ft fall of water, and in a lately erected skin house and yard, all in Holywell, for the residue of several terms of years affecting them; assignment from (i) - (iv) to (v) of four fifth shares in the sites of the lowest corn mill and of the Black Jack works and messuages and lands in Holywell for the residue of a term of 99 years; terms, conditions and covenants specified.

John Smalley (1729-1782) was in cotton big time, he was a banker and backer of Richard Arkwright himself. John came from Preston, a liquor merchant and house painter, and he advanced nearly all the money required for Arkwright's initial experiments on his water frame.  Fearing Luddite destruction in the Lancashire  cotton towns he moved to Cromford, Derbyshire with Arkwright but the partnership crumbled after Smalley ran out of money and they quarrelled. John left Arkwright in 1775 and in 1777 he moved to Holywell and went into partnership with John Chambers who ran a coarse paper mill and a wire mill in The Greenfield Valley with his mother. The valley had magnificently powerful waters, was within easy reach of Liverpool and had an established factory environment. There they built a three storied cotton mill with stones from the ruins of Basingwerk Abbey which became know as The Yellow Mill.

 After John died at the young age of 53 his widow Elizabeth Smalley continued the business with her son Christopher and a new mill was erected in 1783, The Upper Mill. This was boom time for cotton and further investment was wanted ... for The Lower Mill ... this was the cotton mill powered by the waters of St Winefride which attracted the investment attention of Daniel Whittaker in 1785 ... a much better bet than Acton Bridge ... and what an investment!

Thomas Pennant described the scene, 'At a small distance to the south of the manufactory of brass wire of every denomination, a most magnificent cotton works soars, like the tower of Babel, above all the lower buildings. I shall here only say, that about 10 weeks before its completion, nothing but a void appeared before me. At the expiration of that space, in another ride I took, I cannot express my astonishment at feeling the enormous mass risen, as if by magic, out of the ground. It was erected in the summer of 1785, it is 36 yards long, 10 yards wide and 6 stories high, and is worked with a water wheel 18 ft high and 7 feet wide with a fall of water of 16 feet ...'

No doubt by 1785 this 'magnificent' mill took advantage of all the recent technical & organisational innovations from around Manchester which spearheaded the textile industry and the industrial revolution - 

1733 John Kay and his flying shuttle

1738 Lewis Paul & John Wyatt and their spinning rollers

1764 James Hargreaves and his spinning jenny

1771 Richard Arkwright and his water powered frames

1779 Samuel Crompton and his mule

1785 Edmund Cartwright and his power loom

The Lower Cotton Mill in The Greenfield Valley was a culmination of all this luxurious exuberance ... although they were probably not involved in weaving ...

The new 1785 partnership included brothers Thomas & William Douglas and Peter Atherton in addition to Daniel Whittaker and the Smalleys, their ambition was unbounded and in 1790 a fourth six story mill was added, The Crescent Mill. The mills collectively were known as The Cotton Twist Company of Holywell. The Upper Mill, worked 12,218 spindles, the Lower Mill, 7492 spindles and The Crescent Mill, 8286 spindles. 26,096 pounds of thread were produced in an average week, furnishing employment for nearly 1000 persons.

Partners had to be chosen with care, trust and management skills were essential complements to capital. Peter Atherton (-1799) was a machine builder and clock maker from Warrington who also helped Arkwright in the early days. Clock makers were clearly important in the development of the larger mechanical machines. Atherton diversified his interests and in 1783 he had joined William Douglass in a cotton venture in Pendlebury. He subsequently took over the Holywell Cotton Twist Company. He later developed a merchanting business in Liverpool and invested in a cotton mill in Mold. In the 1790s he became a partner in Philips & Lee of Salford ...

These Lancashire merchants were an incestuous lot, the same names cropped up again and again ... but together they built the backbone of the industrial revolution and transformed Flintshire ...

Iron & Bersham ...

Bersham iron working had a long prehistory. Iron gave its name to an 'age' from 500 BC when the smelting of iron became an option using higher temperatures of 1535°C from forced draughts.

The first iron 'factories' were forges. 'Bloomery' forges processed magnetite by roasting and smelting with charcoal and silicate rock to form a 'bloom', a mix of iron & slag. In the spongy mix the iron was not molten and carbon did not dissolve in it. Wrought iron was produced by hammering out the slag, and this 'working' of the bloom resulted in residual 'fibrous' inclusions of slag which gave the wrought iron its malleable properties. Water wheels provide power for trip hammers and bellows. These forges ceased to be economic once pig iron was available.

Abraham Darby (1678-1717) laid the foundation stone for the wealth & success of the mass production of iron. After moving to Bristol in 1699, he established the Baptist Mills brass works, including the world’s first metallurgy laboratory, followed by an iron foundry in 1706. Two years later, he took out a lease on a derelict furnace at Coalbrookdale and put all his energies - and cash - into producing cast iron from iron ore and coke.

By 1709 Abraham Darby was operating his blast furnace in Coalbrookdale for the manufacture of kettles, pots and cauldrons. His iron was useful for pots but little else, pig iron contained too much carbon. The high temperatures of the blast furnace produced liquid iron which readily dissolved carbon.

However once pig iron was available 'finery' forges produced wrought iron from pig iron using charcoal to avoid further impurities. The finery melted the pig iron to oxidise impurities and produce a spongy bloom, and in the chafery, the bloom was consolidated with hammers and rolling mills into bar iron. In the late 18th century these forges relying on ever scarcer charcoal were replaced by puddling.

1783 Henry Cort 'puddled' iron in a reverberatory furnace which removed contact of the pig iron with the coal and enabled carbon and impurity reduction by oxidation. The bloom then had to be hammered and rolled into wrought iron, and by 1850, even steel could be produced. Cheap coal now fired the industrial revolution, liberating processes from the limitations of charcoal and water power!  Cast iron was now puddled in an oxidizing atmosphere to convert it to the lower-carbon mild steel or bar iron, which was further refined by rolling mills driven by steam engines. Later in 1855 the Bessemer process dominated and mild steel replaced wrought iron for most purposes.

'Forge' became the generic name for a local work place for iron fabrication ... nails, horse shoes ...

Ironworking first started at Bersham, near Wrexham in Wales around 1640. From 1717, the works were in the hands of Charles Lloyd who established the Bersham links with Coalbrookdale. This link led in 1721 to Bersham furnace becoming the first blast furnace in Wales to use 'coakes for potting’ cashing in on Abraham Darby's success. Following Lloyd's bankruptcy in 1727, the Coalbrookdale connection continued when Abraham Darby's son-in-law, John Hawkins, acquired the Bersham works. An agreement between the two works, resulted in Bersham concentrating on pot founding, which left Coalbrookdale free to produce Newcomen steam engines. This led to the expansion of the ironworks with an air furnace and moulding room being added in 1733 with money provided by the Coalbrookdale Company.

In 1753, the Cumbrian pot founder, Isaac Wilkinson, leased the works which were taken over by his sons John and William in 1763 as the New Bersham Company. Family quarrels and litigation started as early as 1762, and in 1763 Isaac moved to Bristol and eventually John ended up as the owner of the Bersham works. The works then entered their most successful phase.

John Wilkinson (1728 - 1808) became a famous eighteenth century ironmaster inventor and entrepreneur. He was know as 'Iron Mad Jack' because of his obsession with iron. He invented the first machine to accurately bore cannon. Although the New Bersham Company manufactured a variety of products, the main product was cannon ... originally the accuracy of the bore had always been difficult to accomplish, and cannonballs often became stuck in the barrel, leading to explosions. In 1774 John Wilkinson patented his method of casting and boring cannon from the solid and he became a major manufacturer of cannon for the government, many being supplied for the American War of Independence. Bersham soon led the world in the field of iron technology.

From the cannon boring technique Wilkinson developed a method of boring cylinders for James Watt's new improved steam engine. From 1775 the production of engine components became increasingly important. After the end of the American War in 1783, ordnance production virtually ceased, allowing Wilkinson to concentrate on the engine branch of operation. Bersham Ironworks became the centre for engine cylinder production.

The increasing success of the works led to a drastic expansion to the south and east of the early eighteenth century site, now known as Mill Farm. By 1795, the ironworks consisted of cylinder and gun foundries, boring mills, rolling mills where boilers were manufactured, the Bersham old furnace, and joiners’ and turners’ shops. In 1793 the space to expand at Bersham had run out, and Wilkinson needed to move on.

 He purchased the nearby Brymbo Hall estate where he established an ironworks which later became the Brymbo Steelworks. Brymbo had several advantages over the Bersham site and the decline of Bersham ensued. By the time of John's death in 1808, iron production at Bersham had ended.

Wilkinson also developed associated sites ... at the Minera Lead Mine he built a smelting pit.

Mathew Boulton (1728-1809), James Watt's partner at Soho, was Bersham's most profitable customer.

Zinc & Greenfield ...

Zinc smelting was a problem. Zinc ores occur relatively abundantly in the earth's crust as sphalerite (Zn/Fe)S, blende ZnS, zincite ZnO2, and smithsonite or calamine ZnCO3. Predominantly in Flintshire's carboniferous limestone the zinc blende usually occurred mixed with ores of lead, copper & silver.

Zinc was difficult to extract because of the mixed nature of the metal ores and the difficulty of separation by control of temperature. In fact the production technology of zinc metal was unknown in Europe and other countries in the western world, until William Champion produced zinc from its ore at Bristol in 1750.

William Champion (1709–1789) was credited with patenting a process in Great Britain to distil zinc from calamine using charcoal in a smelter.

William Champion came from a family who were already concerned with the metal trade at Bristol, his father, Nehemiah, being a leading partner in the Bristol Brass Company.

The Bristol Brass Company at Baptist Mills on the river Frome was started in 1702 by a  partnership of Quakers which included a young Abraham Darby. Baptist Mills was perhaps the earliest of the metal processing partnerships of the industrial revolution, the business becoming an early example of an unincorporated joint stock company.

William took over the Baptist Mills when Abraham Darby left for Caolbrookdale in 1709. William's initial works were on Old Market in Bristol and he had made 200 tons of spelter by 1742, when he was required to move because his premises were a 'common nuisance'. In 1746, he formed the Warmley Company, a partnership with fellow Quakers. The partners included Thomas Goldney, a Bristol merchant who was also a partner in the Coalbrookdale Works, and Sampson Lloyd, a Birmingham ironmonger. They set up works at Warmley, creating a large reservoir to power battery works, wire mills and rolling mills.

Prior to William's invention 'calamine brass' was made by mixing copper with zinc ores which were then heated to obtain the alloy of copper and zinc, brass. Because the amounts of copper and zinc could not be controlled the quality of the brass produced by this method could not be controlled. Using William's production method the copper and zinc could be mixed in the exact amounts needed to obtain the quality of the brass required. His methods enabled him to produce a much higher quality brass than his rivals.

Champion’s process of distillation was very similar to the process used in India, suggesting that the technology reached England from India. The problem with the production of zinc was that a temperature of 1000ºC was needed to reduce zinc oxide to zinc, but the zinc metal vaporised at 907ºC. It was thus necessary for the process to provide a means of condensing the zinc vapour before it emerged from the reducing conditions in the furnace and was lost to the atmosphere or re-oxidized. What William did was to invent an enclosed vessel within the atmosphere of the furnace to capture the zinc vapour and pass it down a tube at the base of the vessel into a water bath where it condensed as zinc flakes. He obtained a patent for this process in 1738. In 1750 he sought an extension of his patent, but this was opposed.

By 1754, the company owned 15 copper furnaces, 12 brass furnaces, 4 spelter furnaces, a battery mill, rolling mills for making plates, rolling and cutting mills for wire, and a wire mill of both thick and fine drawn kinds. At this time William Champion's technology probably made his Zinc and Brass Works the largest industrial site in Europe.

In 1761 he sought new partners for an expanded works. However, by 1765, he was in financial difficulties. He sought a charter of incorporation, but this was refused. When the patents ran out, his competitors rapidly developed furnaces based on his design. William could not compete and with a falling price of zinc he went bankrupt in 1768 and was dismissed by the Warmley Company. However they never used the works to their full capacity and the company was forced to sell their works in 1769 to the old Bristol Brass Company .

William's brother John Champion developed a process, patented in 1758, for the calcination of zinc sulfide to oxide for use in the recovery process.

Thomas Pennant records that as early as 1758 in the valley from Holywell to the sea 'Edward Pennant Esq granted a lease of it to Mr Champion, partner in the Warmley Company of Bristol, who there calcined 'black jack'. He was the first who engaged in such a concern in this country, which carried on under the protection of a patent'.

So what attracted William Champion to Flintshire?

 Lead mining was diffuse throughout the UK and throughout the carboniferous limestones of North Wales but eventually the smelting and manufacture became concentrated in Flintshire close by the coalfields and the Dee wharfs. In 1849 one quarter of all lead mined in the UK was smelted in reverberatory furnaces in Bagillt, Flint and Llanerch. Lead ore was brought in from the Halkyn mines by horse carts and tramways to smelters close to the wharfs on the Dee. These wharfs were also conveniently used for importing ores from elsewhere in the UK and from overseas where they went direct to the adjacent smelters or were auctioned to the highest bidder at the regular Flint and Holywell markets.

Clearly and unsurprisingly in a free trade economy lead metal production was almost constantly under threat from foreign imports. The continental export trade was lost during the wars, cheap Spanish imports were booming and the industry was under further pressure from Germany. From the early 19th century lead smelting was in trouble ...

Lead and zinc ores were found together in the Halkyn veins and the Holywell commons as galena (PbS) and sphalerite (ZnS), and the local practice through the centuries had been to discard the non-lead wastes from mining and smelting. Sphalerite often called zinc blende, was a pain for the lead miners, an interminable nuisance referred to in derogatory terms as 'mock lead', 'false galena' and 'black-jack'!

Thus, zinc rich ores had accumulated in old underground workings, where sphalerite had been left in place, and spoil heaps, where it had been thrown away. When Champion's technology became available these accumulations were reworked. It was John Champion's patent No 726 of 1758 which was important in Flintshire, this patent involved 'black jack' which was plentiful and hitherto useless. Confusingly William also patented a similar process in 1767. Raw ores from Halkyn wastes were converted in the special furnaces into zinc metal ingots giving much needed work to the redundant souls of the old lead mines. With cheap waste as input and the valuable zinc output it was a successful business. The mining and preparation of zinc thus provided fruitful employment for capital which had ceased to be profitable in the lead industry itself.

Furthermore better quality brass was not the only use for zinc, in 1837 galvanising was invented. Roofing, bath tubs, pails, stamped ornaments, castings ... zinc as a material for the sheathing and protecting of ships' hulls was patented in 1805, by 1850 there had been 300 ships sheathed in British ports, and in 1852 to upwards of 1000, it worked. Clearly all these vessels were of wood as galvanic action was a problem when zinc was in contact with other metals.

Zinc oxide was a brilliant white and was used from early times as a pigment.

Zinc rolling mills seem to have been first appeared in 1834 in Kent, the machinery was made by Hall, a well known engineer.

Zinc was everywhere ... for brass 19%, galvanizing 47%, other alloys 14%, chemicals 9% & die casting 8% ... and in the 1840s two new zinc works were opened up in Greenfield & Bagillt ... 

William Crockford (1775-1844) was the eldest son of a London fishmonger, an entrepreneur who made his money from gambling in the London clubs ... he later tried his hand at investments in Flintshire.

In 1823 he opened his 'Gas Works' exploiting the coals found in the Flintshire seams. The streets of Holywell were lit by gas from 1824.

In 1827 after winning a particularly large sum of money, according to one story £100,000, he built a luxurious gambling house at 50 St James's Street, London. To ensure exclusiveness, he organized it as a club. The gambling house was called Crockford's Club, and it quickly became the rage as every social celebrity and every distinguished foreigner visiting London hastened to become a member. 

In 1842 William opened another venture in Flintshire, a new spelter process close to the gas works at Greenfield. With John Langthorpe as manager and William Reid as superintendent, the works was described as the most modern in Britain. The spelter production site at Greenfield with its 150 foot chimney had direct access to the Dee wharf via a magnificent tramway. William was banking on a combination of the Champion technology and the Halkyn wastes to secure his fortune. No doubt this state of the art zinc production unit supplied the spelter of commerce to John Budd & Thomas Beavan, the Liverpool metal brokers ... and some would have found its way to John Budd's zinc rolling mill at Acton bridge ...

William had two brothers Henry & Charles and both were involved in the Flintshire projects. After Williams death in 1844 Henry took over the management of two collieries, Abbey & Dingle in Greenfield and Charles with William's wife Sarah, and daughters Julia, Elizabeth, Fanny & Harriot retained interests in the businesses including the Greenfield Spelter Works.

But in spite of galvanising technology in 1837 (and John Budd's 1835 printing cylinder patent!) the price of zinc fell ... it was all too easy ... and then there were the imports ... spelter was spelter ... Crockfords invested in new plant & equipment but there were no dramatic breakthroughs ... there was little new technology nor patents which always seemed necessary for sustained profitability ...

Charles was certainly busy around this time as he leased land off Sir Pyers Mostyn in 1850 and by 1860 he was developing a chemical manufacturing business exploiting the by-products from his smelting operation as his patented technology indicated.

Sulphurous vapours from the zinc blende were a significant environmental nuisance prior to the work of entrepreneurs like Crockford who recovered sulphur dioxide as condensate in his lead chamber. The acid was a significant raw material in the growing chemical industry. Once desulphurised Crockford's ores would then have been reduced to produce the zinc metal by Champion's process.

All was explained in - 'A Practical Treatise on Metallurgy' by Bruno Kerl, Sir William Crookes, Ernst Otto Röhrig, 1868. This was a monumental work on the 19th century technology. Calcining (carbonate to oxide and removes water) & Roasting (oxidation to the oxide) produced the ZnO which was then reduced and the metal condensed in the furnace ... a constant battle between reduction & oxidation ...

Charles Crockford was also involved in the 'Holywell Railway & Limestone Company'. In 1830s William Parry started up a cement & limestone business, which unlike many of the Greenfield ventures enjoyed some success, thriving on the production of building materials for the Liverpool docks & wharfs and the local canals. The business was bought by in 1864 by the 'Holywell Lime Company' with a local quarryman Evan Evans as MD. The assets included the Greenfield mineral railway to the Dee wharf and other quarrying and mineral resources. When the Holywell Railway Company failed Evans bought the railway and renamed the company 'Holywell Railway & Limestone Company'. The business struggled and was repurchased by William Parry in 1876 but after further ownership changes was finally liquidated in 1892.

In this way centuries of waste became economic to exploit. Profitable zinc could be recovered from waste dumps and profitable by-products recovered from smoke stacks!

Similar economics were discovered at Acton Bridge with the multitude of profitable by products resulting from animal carcase waste!

 

Any corrections and additional information gratefully received contact john p birchall

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