Perkin Sons

FIGURE 3. The works of Perkin Sons, Greenford Green, northwest London, 1858. From a sketch by William Henry Perkin. Edelstein Collection... 

In fact, Perkin dropped out of college at the age of 18 to build a factory to manufacture his new synthetic dye. The original small factory (Perkin Sons) located on the banks of the Grand Junction Canal, south of the Black Horse Public House, in Greenford, West London, was demolished in 1957. 

Studies in Bleachery Management Compliments of B. F. Perkins Son, Inc., Holyoke,... 

The synthetic dye manufacturing industry was founded in 1857 by Perkin Sons, who set up a chemical works near London for the manufacture of an artificial dye, mauveine (C.I. 50245) by the following route ... 

The process was discovered and patented in 1856 by William Henry Perkin, at a time when the wool and cotton industries were enjoying a trade boom and the demand for colorants threatened to outstrip the supplies of natural dyes, mostly vegetable, then available. Crude benzol from the well-established coal-gas and coal-tar distillation industries was commercially available, as were mineral acids, alkalis, bichromates, saltpetre and other materials. Mauveine followed by other synthetic dyes from Perkin Sons, soon became a success. Other, rival pioneers built factories in the UK and Europe and introduced new dyes, the result of their own research work. 

The first artificial coal tar dyestuff was the outcome of a chance discovery by one individual, William Perkin. Perkin s own account of how he produced this dye, mauve, is most revealing, as is the subsequent history of his firm. Following Perkin s account, Pollard suggests that Perkin Sons sold out in 1873 mainly because of the lack of trained chemists.That may have been an important factor, and had much to do with the general decline of the British dye industry, but it was far from the only reason. The new industry was the first one in which formal scientific knowledge was vital, which meant that coordinated research and... 

According to Fox, op. cit. (11), Perkin Sons needed to both expand and relocate the factory (which was without rail connections) to compete successfully. The partners considered this to be too risky and sold out at the end of 1873 (p. 99). The BASF company, which had a trading arrangement with Perkin Sons over artificial alizarin, expressed no interest in purchasing the Greenford Green factory, the equipment of which was almost outmoded. 

L. Castle and M. 1. Perkins, in The Chemistry of Organic Selenium and Tellurium Compounds, Part 2, S. Patai, ed., John Wiley Sons, Chichester, UK., 1987, Chapter 16. 

Confident that he could supply such dyes, Perkin felt financially secure enough to marry Jemima Harriet Lissett. The first of their two sons was born a year later. The young father posed for a photograph. A bushy dark beard that stretched from the cleft of his chin to his ears made him look reassuringly older than 22. 

Sidney Edelstein. William Henry Perkin. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York Charles Scribner s Sons, 1974 515-517. 

There were other family connections in the London-Manchester network, including two father-son teams, William Henry Perkin, Sr./William Henry Perkin, Jr., and Henry Edward Armstrong/Edward Frankland Armstrong. Perkin,... 

JJ. Sweeny, G. Perkins, Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., L- A. Paquette, Ed., New York, 1995, 7, 5315 ... 

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