Losh, Wilson and Bell, later Bells, Goodman, then Bells, Lightfoot and finally Bell Brothers, was a leading
Northeast England
North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL (UK), ITL for Office for National Statistics, statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the regi ...
manufacturing company, founded in 1809 by the partners
William Losh William Losh (1770 in Carlisle – 4 August 1861, in Ellison Place, Newcastle) was a chemist and industrialist who is credited with introducing the Leblanc process for the manufacture of alkali to the United Kingdom.
Life and work
Losh worked in a ...
,
Thomas Wilson, and Thomas Bell.
The firm was founded at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is als ...
with an
ironworks
An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''.
Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...
and an
alkali
In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a ...
works nearby at Walker. The alkali works was the first in England to make
soda
Soda or SODA may refer to:
Chemistry
* Some chemical compounds containing sodium
** Sodium carbonate, washing soda or soda ash
** Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda
** Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda
** Sodium oxide, an alkali metal oxide
* Sod ...
using the
Leblanc process
The Leblanc process (pronounced leh-blaank) was an early industrial process for making ''soda ash'' (sodium carbonate) used throughout the 19th century, named after its inventor, Nicolas Leblanc. It involved two stages: making sodium sulfate from ...
; the ironworks was the first to use
Cleveland Ironstone, presaging the 1850s boom in ironmaking on
Teesside
Teesside () is a built-up area around the River Tees in the north of England, split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name was initially used as a county borough in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Historically a hub for heavy manu ...
.
The so-called discoverer of Cleveland Ironstone, the mining engineer
John Vaughan, ran a rolling mill for the company before leaving to found the major rival firm
Bolckow Vaughan
Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd was an English steelmaking, ironmaking and mining company founded in 1864, based on the partnership since 1840 of its two founders, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan (ironmaster), John Vaughan. The firm drove the dramat ...
. The other key figure in the company was
Lowthian Bell
Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, 1st Baronet, FRS (18 February 1816 – 20 December 1904) was a Victorian ironmaster and Liberal Party politician from Washington, County Durham, in the north of England. He was described as being "as famous in his day ...
, son of Thomas Bell; he became perhaps the best known
ironmaster
An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain.
The ironmaster was usually a large ...
in England.
As Bell Brothers, the firm continued until 1931, when it was taken over by rival
Dorman Long
Dorman Long & Co was a UK steel producer, later diversifying into bridge building. It was once listed on the London Stock Exchange.
History
The company was founded by Arthur Dorman and Albert de Lande Long when they acquired ''West Marsh ...
.
History
Founders
The company was named after
William Losh William Losh (1770 in Carlisle – 4 August 1861, in Ellison Place, Newcastle) was a chemist and industrialist who is credited with introducing the Leblanc process for the manufacture of alkali to the United Kingdom.
Life and work
Losh worked in a ...
,
Thomas Wilson, and Thomas Bell.
William Losh (1770 Carlisle–4 August 1861, Ellison Place, Newcastle) came from a rich family that owned coal mines in
Northeast England
North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL (UK), ITL for Office for National Statistics, statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the regi ...
.
He was educated in Hamburg, and trained in Newcastle, Sweden and France. He married Alice Wilkinson of Carlisle on 1 March 1798 at Gateshead. He was a friend of the explorer
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...
and a one-time business partner of rail pioneer
George Stephenson
George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for ...
. His brother James Losh was also a partner in the firm, and kept a diary recording his anxieties about the firm during the
Napoleonic wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
.
[
Thomas Wilson (1773–9 May 1858) of ]Low Fell
Low Fell is a suburb of Gateshead situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, England. Built predominantly on sandstone, grindstone and clay, it is bordered by Sheriff Hill/Deckham to the east, Saltwell/Bensham to the w ...
, Gateshead
Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...
[ joined the Losh, Lubbin counting house. In 1807, Wilson became a partner and the firm took the name Losh, Wilson and Bell. In 1810 he married Mrs Fell of Kirklinton.
Thomas Bell, (5 March 1784 – 20 April 1845) partner, was married to Katherine Lowthian of Newbiggin, Cumberland on 25 March 1815. Bell's father was a ]blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...
.
Origins: from alkali to iron
The firm's origins can be traced back to 1790 when Archibald Dundonald, with John and William Losh, experimented on how to produce soda
Soda or SODA may refer to:
Chemistry
* Some chemical compounds containing sodium
** Sodium carbonate, washing soda or soda ash
** Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda
** Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda
** Sodium oxide, an alkali metal oxide
* Sod ...
from salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...
. In about 1793 they opened a works at Bells Close, near Newcastle. Dundonald sent William Losh to Paris to study Nicolas Leblanc
Nicolas Leblanc (December 6, 1742 – January 16, 1806) was a French chemist and surgeon who discovered how to manufacture soda ash from common salt.
Earlier days
Leblanc was born in Ivoy le Pré, Cher, France on 6 December 1742. His fathe ...
's process for making soda from salt.[Grace's Guide: Walker Ironworks]
/ref> In 1807, the Loshes opened an alkali
In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a ...
works at Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne
Walker is a residential suburb and electoral ward in the south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
History
The place-name 'Walker' is first attested in 1242, where it appears as ''Waucre''. This means 'wall-carr', that is to say, 'the marsh b ...
, Northumberland. It was the first in England to use the Leblanc process
The Leblanc process (pronounced leh-blaank) was an early industrial process for making ''soda ash'' (sodium carbonate) used throughout the 19th century, named after its inventor, Nicolas Leblanc. It involved two stages: making sodium sulfate from ...
. Dundonald left the partnership and the business continued as Walker Alkali Works.[
Losh, Wilson & Bell's first ]ironworks
An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''.
Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...
was founded in 1809 at Walker, beside the alkali works, carrying out a mixture of engineering work but not building steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
s. By 1818, George Stephenson
George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for ...
's original wooden wagonway was completely relaid with cast-iron edge-rails made in collaboration between Stephenson, who owned the patent, and Losh, Wilson and Bell. Around 1821, George Stephenson was briefly a partner in the Walker Ironworks.[
]
Wealth
In 1827 a rolling mill
In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simil ...
capable of 100 tons of bar iron per week was installed at the Walker Ironworks;[ in the same year, Losh, Wilson and Bell's Walker foundry was listed in Parson and White's gazetteer of Durham and Northumberland as a steam engine manufacturer. In 1833, the iron puddling process was installed at Walker.][ In 1835, while working as an inspector of construction on the Whitby & Pickering Railway, Thomas Wilson noted the presence of ]ironstone
Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...
in a railway cutting at Grosmont, and arranged for drift mine
Drift mining is either the mining of an ore deposit by underground methods, or the working of coal seams accessed by adits driven into the surface outcrop of the coal bed. A drift mine is an underground mine in which the entry or access is above ...
s to exploit the find; the new railway carried the ore to Whitby
Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a maritime, mineral and tourist heritage. Its East Clif ...
. In that year, at the age of nineteen, Thomas Bell's son Lowthian Bell
Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, 1st Baronet, FRS (18 February 1816 – 20 December 1904) was a Victorian ironmaster and Liberal Party politician from Washington, County Durham, in the north of England. He was described as being "as famous in his day ...
entered the firm's Newcastle office under his father. In 1836 he joined his father at the firm's ironworks at Walker.[The Peerage: Bell, Sir Isaac Lowthian]
William Arthur Bone, 1912.
In 1838, a second mill for rolling rails was added, run by the engineer John Vaughan (who went on to found Bolckow Vaughan
Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd was an English steelmaking, ironmaking and mining company founded in 1864, based on the partnership since 1840 of its two founders, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan (ironmaster), John Vaughan. The firm drove the dramat ...
); he strongly influenced Lowthian Bell to become an ironmaster
An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain.
The ironmaster was usually a large ...
.[ In the same year, '' The Athenaeum Journal'' reported that the Losh, Wilson & Bell works was manufacturing ]tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
and iron plate in large quantities, along with iron bars for making railway-carriage wheels. The firm's adjacent alkali works was one of several such operations on the Tyne that were collectively producing more than 250 tons of crystallised soda and about 100 tons of soda ash weekly. The journal called William Losh "the father of soda-making on the Tyne" and described him as the head of the firm (although it was a partnership).
In 1842, the shortage of pig iron
Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with silic ...
persuaded Bell to install its own blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric ...
for smelting mill cinder; this was a key decision, enabling the firm to expand. Only two years later, in 1844, the firm installed a second furnace at Walker for Cleveland Ironstone from Grosmont, six years before the boom in Cleveland iron when Vaughan
Vaughan () (2021 population 323,103) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increas ...
and Marley discovered ironstone in the Eston Hills in 1850.[ From 1849, Losh, Wilson and Bell were subcontractors on the Newcastle-Gateshead High Level Bridge, responsible for constructing the bridge approaches.
On 25 January 1851, Lowthian Bell left the partnership with William Losh, Thomas Wilson, Catherine Bell, Thomas Bell and John Bell. The business at that time was described in the ]London Gazette
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
as "Iron Manufacturers, and Ship and Insurance Brokers, under the style or firm of Losh, Wilson, and Bell". He went on to have a career in chemistry and politics, becoming a member of parliament among many other distinctions.
On 8 October 1855, there was a serious boiler explosion
A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. There are two types of boiler explosions. One type is a failure of the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. There can be many different causes, such as failure of the safety valve ...
at the Walker Iron Works, which killed at least seven workers. According to a contemporary account, the boiler
unfurled like a sail, was blown upwards, carrying with it two roofings of the sheds, and blowing down two furnaces, with their chimneys, and scattering the molten metal and red hot bricks around, while one end of it was hurled into the midst of the works, and the other about 200 yards over the hill top, into the lumber-yard.
All the dead were aged between 19 and 33, and the event created something of a sensation at the time.[ In 1857, ]John Marley
John Marley (born Mortimer Marlieb, October 17, 1907 – May 22, 1984) was an American actor who was known for his role as Phil Cavalleri in '' Love Story'' and as Jack Woltz—the defiant film mogul who awakens to find the severed head ...
, in his account of the Cleveland Ironstone, described the Bell Ironworks as follows:[John Marley, ''Cleveland Ironstone'', 1857.]These iron-works, situate on the Tyne, and belonging to Messrs. Losh, Wilson, & Bell, originally consisted of only one furnace, being the first blast furnace that was specially erected for this bed of ironstone (in connection with Scotch, and other ores, for mixing), viz., about the year 1842 or 1843, and which ironstone was purchased from the aforesaid mines belonging to Mrs. Clark, in the Whitby
Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a maritime, mineral and tourist heritage. Its East Clif ...
district, the first cargo being sent in June or July, 1843, since which time these works have been increased by one extra furnace, built for the Whitby district ironstone in 1844, and by other three t_Port_Clarence.html"_;"title="Port_Clarence.html"_;"title="t_Port_Clarence">t_Port_Clarence">Port_Clarence.html"_;"title="t_Port_Clarence">t_Port_Clarencefor_the_north_part_of_Cleveland,_about_1852,_making_now_a_total_of_five_furnaces.
_Bells,_Goodman_
From_1869_at_the_latest,_the_company_owning_the_Walker_Engine_Works_was_Bells,_Goodman_&_Co._In_that_year_the_firm_made_the_tunnelling_shield_and_iron_castings_to_line_the_Tower_Subway.html" "title="Port_Clarence">t_Port_Clarence.html" ;"title="Port_Clarence.html" ;"title="t Port Clarence">t Port Clarence">Port_Clarence.html" ;"title="t Port Clarence">t Port Clarencefor the north part of Cleveland, about 1852, making now a total of five furnaces.[
]
Bells, Goodman
From 1869 at the latest, the company owning the Walker Engine Works was Bells, Goodman & Co. In that year the firm made the tunnelling shield and iron castings to line the Tower Subway">Tower subway
The Tower Subway is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in central London, between Tower Hill on the north bank of the river and Vine Lane (off Tooley Street) on the south. In 1869 a circular tunnel was dug through the London clay using a cast i ...
tunnels. In 1871 the firm made pumping and winding engines for Seghill Colliery. In 1875 it made machinery to condense smoke and gases for Clyde Lead Works of Glasgow.
In 1875, the Bells, Goodman partnership was dissolved when Alfred Goodman retired. The firm became known as Bells, Lightfoot & Co.
In 1876 it supplied a 90" Cornish beam engine for Springhead Pumping Station near Anlaby in the East Riding of Yorkshire; it had an unusual box-section wrought iron beam, and continued running until 1952.
On 30 November 1876, Thomas Bell Lightfoot, Managing Partner, was granted a patent for his developments on machines for squeezing metals into shape. However, on 28 August 1883, Thomas Bell moved to Bilbao, Spain, where he continued to describe himself as an Ironmaster, and by mutual consent his partnership with Henry Bell and Thomas Bell the younger was dissolved. The deed was witnessed on 7 December 1883.
By 1873, Bell Brothers owned 9 coal mines in County Durham and Yorkshire. There were 10 mines in 1882; in 1888 the "Clarence Salt Works" was also recorded. In 1896 and 1902 the company had 11 mines. In 1914 there are 12; in 1921 there are 14.