Ward, Joshua

In 1746 Dr. John Roebuck (1718-1794), of Birmingham, and Samuel Garbett substituted lead chambers, each about six feet square, for the glass globes introduced six years previously by Joshua Ward (22), an improvement which cut down the cost of producing the acid to one-fourth of its former amount (12, 13). Three years later, after the substitution of sulfuric acid for sour milk in the old process of bleaching had created a demand for the acid, Roebuck and Garbett erected a sulfuric acid plant at Prestonpans, on the east coast of Scotland (14). Since a salt industry also flourished there, Prestonpans was named for the salt pans. 

Alcock left Oxford for Bath in 1757 and he was replaced as the anatomy lecturer by John Smith (1721-1796). It is not clear if Smith also replaced Alcock as the chemistry lecturer - it is significant that Francis Bayley went to Edinburgh in exactly this period - but he gave chemistry lectures as part of an anatomy course in 1759. Chemistry came after agriculture, and was only a small part of the course. Smith drew heavily on other authors and he kept the content of his lectures within the medical remit of the course. For example, alkaline salts was largely a discussion of bile and limewater was mentioned for its ability to dissolve kidney stones. This is not to say that he was completely out of touch with contemporary developments. He mentioned Black s MD thesis (which had been published only five years earlier) and Joshua Ward s process for the manufacture of sulfuric acid. It appears that Smith continued to teach chemistry alongside anatomy at least until he was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry in 1766. ... 

In the seventeenth century the German-Dutch chemist Johann Glauber prepared sulfuric acid by burning sulfur together with saltpeter (potassium nitrate, KNO3) in the presence of steam. As the saltpeter decomposes, it oxidizes the sulfur to SO3, which combines with water to produce sulfuric acid. In 1736, Joshua Ward, a London pharmacist, used this method to begin the first large-scale production of sulfuric acid. 

Plants were built in France and Holland by the end of the 17 century with the Glauber teehnology. One of the largest plants to manufacture sulfuric acid from elemental sulfur by the Bell process was the Great Vitriol Works at Twickenham. The Twickenham plant was owned by Joshua ( Spot ) Ward (1685 - 1761),... 

Large-scale production of sulfuric acid began in about 1740 when Joshua Ward burned sulfur and niter in glass bell jars with a capacity as high as 66 gal. This procedure was improved in 1746 by Dr John Roebuck and Samuel Gardner at... 

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