James Frost (1780?-1840?) was a British

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

manufacturer who invented processes that led to the eventual development of

Portland cement Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th c ...

Biography

Frost was born in

Finchley Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. Finchley is on high ground, north of Charing Cross. Nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, Mill Hill and H ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He set up a plant making

Roman cement Roman cement is a substance developed by James Parker in the 1780s, being patented in 1796. The name is misleading, as it is nothing like any material used by the Romans, but was a "natural cement" made by burning septaria – nodules that are ...

Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-on- ...

in 1807, supplying it for government work. He began experimenting with formulations for "artificial" cements that would provide a cheaper alternative to Roman cement. He appears to have produced a prototype cement at Harwich in 1810. However, it was not until 1822 that he was granted a patent for what he called "British Cement". In October 1825, he leased land at

Swanscombe Swanscombe Help:IPA/English, /ˈswɒnzkəm/ is a village in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England, and the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. It is 4.4 miles west of Gravesend and 4.8 miles east of Dartford. History Prehistory B ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, and set up a plant to manufacture both Roman cement and the new product. The key innovation in his work was the "wet" grinding of raw materials, which became fundamental to the early development of Portland cement. He ground the soft local

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

together with alluvial

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

from the

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

estuary and added water in a washmill to produce a thin slurry from which coarse particles could be removed by settling. The fine, homogenous mixture of chalk and clay particles was dried to a stiff plastic consistency before being burned in a

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...

. He thus emulated the natural process of sedimentary formation of a

marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, clays, and silt. When hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. Marl makes up the lower part o ...

Charles Pasley General Sir Charles William Pasley (8 September 1780 – 19 April 1861) was a British soldier and military engineer who wrote the defining text on the role of the post-American Revolution British Empire: ''An Essay on the Military Policy and Ins ...

communicated frequently with Frost, and gave a detailed description of his techniquesPasley C W, ''Observations on Lime, Calcareous Cements etc'', 1838, appendices 14-16 based on a visit to Swanscombe in December 1828. In 1832, he sold the Swanscombe plant to John Bazely White's, and migrated to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where he set up as a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

. He contributed several papers on calcareous cements to the Journal of the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

. His Swanscombe plant became in the 1840s, under the management of I C Johnson, the second plant to make true Portland cement, and subsequently the "mother" plant of

Blue Circle Industries Blue Circle Industries was a British public company manufacturing cement. It was founded in 1900 as the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Ltd through the fusion of 24 cement works, mostly around on the Thames and Medway estuaries, toget ...

. It closed in 1990, after 165 years of continuous operation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frost, James English inventors Businesspeople in cement People from Finchley Year of birth uncertain 1780s births 1840s deaths People from Swanscombe