Brunner Mond Company

Some years before the formation of ICI in 1926, Brunner, Mond s chief chemist, F.A. Freeth, had also argued the necessity for abstract and theoretical work as a basis for new products. This research philosophy led to close contacts between the company and academic institutions, with scientists being sent around the world to gain expertise in new techniques. 

John Watts, The First Fifty Years of Bmnner Mond and Company (Winnington Brunner Mond and Company, 1923), 52-54. 

ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries). Formed in 1926 by the amalgamation of four major chemical companies, including British Dyestuffs (Kollewe and Wearden, 2007). Two of the other organizations, Brunner Mond and United Alkali, already produced alkalis used as basic components for many chemical processes, particularly washing and dyeing textiles. The last of the four companies, Nobel Industries was founded by Alfred Nobel (of the Nobel Peace Prize) and manufactured explosives. 

In Britain, well-established firms such as United Alkali and Brunner, Mond failed to use these new electrolytic methods. A completely new enterprise, Castner-Kellner Alkali Co. Ltd., founded in 1895, pursued the electrochemical path. Castner was an American, Kellner an Austrian inventor. They sold their products to the British Aluminium Company, and to Solvay. Castner-Kellner acquired rights to electrochemical processes, and was financed by British capital. By 1914 it had grown to become a medium-sized enterprise. Despite this, the view that [a] particular strength of the British lay in alkali production and in the production of caustic soda by an electrical processhas little or no foundation. 

These two firms have both common and distinguishing features. The route for chemists into process management through analytical chemistry is the major similarity and in both firms it was the central mechanism of promotion. In UAC the institutionalization of research and the development of a bureaucratized employment structure was faster. However, Brunner, Mond was much the more successful of the two firms. While there are technical and commercial reasons for this, beyond the mechanisms for the deployment of trained chemists, it seems likely that the more flexible and responsive, and less formalized, systems at Brunner, Mond had some part to play. The UAC approach was related to the firm s complex structure, which was conditioned by the need to integrate the many companies from which it was formed. There are parallels with the kind of organizational structures identified by Chandler in the USA, though that of UAC was crude and driven by contingency. 

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson (1842-1919) A British chemical industrialist and parliamentarian who worked in partnership with the German-born chemist Ludwig Mond (1838-1909) to form the Bruimer Mond Co. Ltd chemical company. The company made alkali using the Solvay process. He was a 1st Baronet and twice served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for the constituency ofNorthwich, Cheshire. 

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