Copperas
The principal use of copperas was as a dye fixative for woollens, in the manufacture of gun powder and ink.
In 1579 Lambarde made a distinction between sulphur and copperas production on the Isle of Sheppey in his Perambulations. A 'Brabanter' called Matthias Falconer is described as trying to 'drawe very good Brimstone and Copperas out of a certein stone…' (Lambarde 1826, 228).
In 1570 a method of producing sulphur probably specifically for the manufacture of gunpowder was discovered by Christopher Saunders (Chaptal 1807, 270-2). Layers of copperas stones were built around a chimney channel, above a wood fuel base. The whole was then covered by earth and wet ashes to make a pyamid-like structure rather like a charcoal-burner's mound. The wood was ignited and following the roasting process, the copperas stones yielded condensed deposits of sulphur along with a residue suitable for making copperas. Lesser quantities of copperas stone ('the brightest of these Stones'), were also required for the production 'wheel-lock pistols and fuses' (Colwall 1677, 1057). As sulphur is a prerequisite of gunpowder production, it is not clear how copperas stones alone could be used in this way. However, it is possible that the stones were ground up before being mixed with gunpowder to produce a sparking chemical, perhaps similar to the chemical used to make modern sparklers.
The first gunpowder works at Faversham appears to have been established some time before 1573, when a Thomas Gyll is referred to in a muster roll as a gunpowder maker (Crocker et al. 1999, 36). This reference confirms the assertion made in 1774 by Faversham's first historian Edward Jacob that there was a '…Powder Make in Faversham in the sixteenth century'. It is therefore possible that this early phase of gunpowder manufacture in Faversham was based on the extraction of sulphur from copperas stone as described above, and that a gunpowder industry was originally established in Faversham because of its proximity to the Whitstable and Queenborough copperas stone beds. It is likely that the copperas industry received a significant boost during the English Civil War (1640-60), when there was a massive increase in the demand for uniforms, gunpowder, saddles, harnesses, etc.
During the medieval period copperas mixed with thornwood extract had been used as scribe's ink.
In the late seventeenth century Dr. Robert Plot, a noted antiquary of Kentish origin, attributed the scarcity of rats and moles on the island of Sheppey to the toxic property of copperas stones and that this property also allowed copperas to be used as a dressing for scab in sheep (V.C.H. 1892, 397).-
An account dated 1464 makes mention of '…a cure for sore eyes using white coperose' (Hudson-Williams 1841, 280), white copperas being zinc sulphate. The Royal Navy used 'elixir' of vitriol (ineffectively) to treat scurvy.
By the late eighteenth century sulphuric acid was not only needed by dyers but was also used for other processes, such as the manufacture of soda (Clapham 1869, 36-7), bleaching cotton (Aikin and Aikin 1807, 144), refining sugar from sugar beet (Hogben 1946, 436) and the manufacture of nitric and hydrochloric acid, both used extensively in the metal trade (Cotteril 1991, 38). It was also used to bleach manuscript paper prior to recycling (Ure 1821, under bleach). The importance of sulphuric acid was further increased by the discovery in 1774 of chlorine, first called oxymuriatic acid, by C.W. Scheele at Uppsala, Sweden (Thorpe 1909, 31; Guttman 1901, 5; Partington 1962).
Whilst the south-eastern copperas industry in general declined gradually throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the works at Queenborough, on the Isle of Sheppey, continued to diversify and flourish. Copperas and 'brimstone' are known to have been produced there in 1579 and Stevens Sons and Company were still producing copperas at the Queenborough Chemical and Copperas Works as late as 1882. In 1886 the same company had begun manufacturing the fertilizers Sulphate of Ammonia and Superphosphate, the latter also called 'vitriolised bones', using sulphuric acid produced from copperas stones. The company, which is still owned by the Stevens family and now known as Sheppy Fertilisers Ltd. continues to produce inorganic and semi-organic compound fertilizers and superphosphates, thus demonstrating a 400 year long period of development between the ancient copperas works and the modern chemical industry.
At Queenborough, the sulphuric acid used in the manufacture of industrially-produced fertilizers was first made with copperas stones (iron pyrites) using a horizontal lead chamber method, this being an adaptation of Roebuck's chambers. There and elsewhere it appears that the pioneers of the fertilizer industry took over the plant, the chemical expertise and some of the chemical processes associated with the production of sulphuric acid from copperas. Indeed, the first of the new industrial-scale fertilizer factories was built on the site of the old copperas works at Deptford. The preliminary sketch plan of the site made by Sir John Bennet Lawes for his new fertilizer works built at Deptford in 1842, clearly shows the old 'vitriol tanks' and the redundant copperas house (Dyke 1993, 14-17). Similarly, another fertilizer factory was built at Ipswich on the site of a copperas works. Other elements of the developmental links between the copperas and subsequent chemical industries are discussed in Chapter 4 (pages-38-39).
We find the following, referring to Queenborough Castle, Sheppey, in Lambarde's Perambulations (1826, 227-8). The passage has been described as 'probably the oldest known record of a chemical factory in Britain (Stevens 1987, 1).
Being at this Castle (in the yere 1579) I found there, one Mathias Falconer (a Brabander) who did (in a furnesse that he had erected) trie and drawe very good Brimstone and Copperas, out of a certein stone that is gathered in great plenty upon the Shoare neare unto Minster in this Ile.---- In Kent the main production sites were at Whitstable, Deptford and Queenborough in Sheppey. At Rotherhithe a copperas works was founded at an early date adjacent to the Deptford works.
The industry at Queenborough, on the west coast of Sheppey in Kent, soon developed, initially under the direction of a Brabant immigrant. The substantial works and production process at Queenborough were described in some detail by Sir William Bereton in 1634 and were reported at that time to use 300 tons of coal per year (Brereton 1844; Neff 1934-5, 3). Bereton states that the copperas ore came to Sheppey from the Essex coast, which suggests that Essex ore was of better quality than that available at Sheppey (George 1975, 35). From Sheppey it was transported to the 'landing place of the copperas houses either at Blackwell or Deptford', both of which were owned by the Crispe family.
The London market took a large share of the product and London capital played its part in the growth of the Whitstable works.
In 1882, William Car Stevens bought the Queenborough works on the Isle of Sheppey, from the Queenborough Chemical Company Ltd., which had acquired them from Josiah Hall in 1871. Stevens Sons and Company continued to use local copperas stones to produce a sulphuric acid via a horizontal lead-chamber process (a development of Roebuck's lead chamber method) using plant previously installed by the Queenborough Chemical Company. By 1886 Stevens Sons and Company was using this process to produce the fertilizer Sulphate of Ammonia (made using sulphuric acid and ammonia from gasworks), along with a wide range of other chemicals including organic manures, superphosphates , bone glue, tallow and degelatised bone. Eventually, the use of copperas stones was discontinued in favour of the sulphur-rich waste from gasworks, this marking the end of the 300 year-old copperas industry at Queenborough (Stevens 1987, 2).
Deeds and schedules in the possession of the company's now retired co-chairman, Mr. Michael Stevens, show that copperas was still being produced in 1892 and that copperas stones were being crushed to make sulphuric acid using a '15 inch Stone Crusher'. The company, still owned by the Stevens family and now known as Sheppy Fertilisers Ltd., continues to produce fertilizers at Queenborough to the present day. Thus, this modern and successful chemical factory can be shown to be the direct descendent of the Falconer works as observed by Lambarde in 1579.
The link between the early copperas works and the modern chemical industry is also evident in an inspection of the Queenborough Chemical and Copperas Works by a Mr. Packard, who accompanied Mr. William Carr Stevens, prior to the latter's purchase of the works in 1882. Mr. Packard was an Ipswich sulphuric acid manufacturer, the Ipswich industry having been established to take advantage of the rich supplies of high-quality copperas stones available at Harwich and Walton-on-the-Naze. Packard eventually joined with other chemical manufacturers to form Fisons, Prentis and Packard, later to become the major agricultural chemical company Fisons Ltd. (Stevens 1982 , 2), now Hydro Agri (UK) Ltd.
In the 1860s the Queenborough works were still sufficiently prominent for a claim to be made that they were 'the most ancient copperas manufactury, being the first established in England' (Post Office 1866, 1118), a claim also made for the Rotherhithe works, near Deptford (Manning and Bray 1804, 228). The 1869 Ordnance Survey (complied 1864/5) shows and names the copperas house and bed at Queenborough and the same works were named, mapped and described in detail in a bill of sale and related documents dated 1882. The Ordnance Survey of 1892 does not show the copperas works to have survived as a separate entity at that time, although the documentary evidence discussed above indicates that some small-scale copperas production still took place at that time.
Finally, the copperas industries of Whitstable, Deptford and Queenborough must now take their place as part of one of the great endeavours of the industrial age, which was the development of domestic chemical and mineral resources through the introduction of expertise from the European mainland.
With Thanks to the Canterbury Archaeological Trust and My father Michael Stevens.
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