Going For A Burton

It might have been a geological fluke but it was one which the Staffordshire town of Burton upon Trent exploited for all its worth during the 19^th century. Built upon layers of gypsum, its hard, mineral-rich water, high in calcium sulphate was found not only to enhance the bitterness of hops but also to preserve beer, making it ideal for sending it distances both in the UK but also abroad. Its other geographical advantage was that even though it is one of England’s towns that is furthest from the sea, it had developed extensive canal and river connections that linked it to the country’s major rivers and thereby to the ports, giving its goods relatively access to the world. This armed, Burton set to conquer the world with beer.

The town’s first beer exports were dark ales sent to the Baltic ports, but the game changer came when Burton’s mineral-rich water proved to be an answer to a problem facing the East India Company – how to supply its employees in far off India with potable beer. Perfect for pale ale production, the town’s water together with a higher level of hops helped preserve the beer’s flavour on its long journey through hot climes.

The first Burton-brewed pale ale was shipped to India in 1823 by Allsopp’s. They did not have it all their own way, though, and by 1834, there were nine brewers in Burton producing what came to be known as Indian Pale Ale (IPA), a term first used in print in the Liverpool Mercury in 1835. It was also brewed for home consumption where it was known as “Indian Beer”.

IPA had a transformational effect on the town’s fortunes. By 1840, some 350 men were working in the breweries producing around 60,000 to 70,000 barrels of beer a year. London’s brewers collectively made 1.5 million barrels. However, the brewing industry in Burton experienced a dramatic expansion between the 1850s and 1880s. By the end of the 1880s, there were 32 brewers in Burton, operating from 36 breweries with an annual production of some 3,025,000 barrels. Over half the working population was employed in the industry and one-third of the town’s land was occupied by brewing, malting, and ancillary industries.

By the mid-1870s, Bass had become the largest brewing company in the world, turning out around 980,000 barrels a year from its state-of-the-art New Brewery built by William Bass in 1858. It had three breweries in Burton, with 28 coppers, 24 teak mash tuns, and 5,000 4-barrel casks in its Burton Union fermentation system. It used 60 tons of hops a week.

Not to be outdone, Samuel Allsopp opened what was described as the largest brewery in the world in 1860 and between them Bass and Allsopp employed two-thirds of the people working in the town’s brewing industry. In all, there were over 30 breweries, over 100 malthouses, all packed in little more than a square mile of land. Anyone not employed directly by a brewery was likely to work in an ancillary industry, such as wood suppliers and turners, independent cooperages and maltings, and beer mat printers.

As well as the town’s very distinctive smell, one of Burton’s most notable features was its railway crossings. With brewhouses, malthouses, cooperages, ale stores, depots etc spread around the town. Brewers laid miles of private railway tracks connecting the various sites and there were 32 level crossing gates to control the flow of traffic. The trains ran to no regular timetable and the crossing gates would come down at any time, disrupting the flow of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Apocryphally, it was said that if there was a bank robbery in the town, the police would order all the crossings to be closed as there was no road out of Burton that did not cross one!

More Scheele’s Green

Carl Scheele had successfully created a green colourant which bore his name, a realistic representation of the colour so abundant in nature, which had hitherto been so difficult to replicate. Scheele’s Green was adopted in earnest by the followers of the Romantic movement who sought to bring a splash of nature into their living rooms. Green wallpaper became fashionable, patterned with images of stylised vines and green foliage.

One who rose to prominence on the wave of this desire for floral patterned wallpaper was William Morris. Despite being a passionate campaigner for safer working conditions for textile workers and strongly supporting the use of organic dyes such as cochineal, kermes, and rose madder, he found that there was nothing that came close to matching the vibrant greens found in nature than Scheele’s Green, which he used alongside Paris green, a similar shade that was more lightfast. The problem, of course, was that Scheele’s Green contained arsenic, a lot of it.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, green wallpaper was found to be good at keeping vermin and insects away, but as the wallpaper flaked, particles of arsenic would fill the air and be breathed in by the unsuspecting residents. There were reports of children dying after their rooms had been painted a vibrant green, of decorators having convulsions, and a cat developing strange blisters after being locked in a green-papered room.

The bedroom on St Helena in which Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final years in exile was decorated with a white, gold, and green wallpaper, which was subjected to a chemical analysis in 1980 and found to contain arsenic. On his death in 1821 locks of his hair were sold to supporters and these were found to contain arsenic. The theory developed that the humid air of the tropical air caused a mould to develop, which reacted with the wallpaper creating a poisonous gas, but it is now thought that it might have contributed to napoleon’s death it was not the direct cause.

Perhaps conflicted by the fact that he was the heir to a copper mine which produced arsenic dust as a byproduct of the mining activity, Morris was sceptical of claims that arsenic was inimical to human health and well-being, decrying miners suffering from arsenic poisoning as being “bitten by witch fever”. After all, no one had died, let alone fallen sick. It was only in 1870, bowing to public pressure, that he began using arsenic-free greens in his workshop.

By the time governments in the Western world began to regulate the use of arsenic, green wallpaper had become passé, women’s clothing became more streamlined and the elaborate designs and decorations so popular in the late Victorian period were now viewed as fussy and old-fashioned. Even the demand for artificial flowers waned, the industry further handicapped by legislation prohibiting the use of child labour and the flood of cheap imports. David Bloor was probably London’s last flower maker.  

Even today, green is a difficult colour to replicate. Commercial greens are often made with pigment green 7, which contains chlorine and cannot be recycled or composted safely, while pigment green 36 also contains chlorine and bromide bombs. The inorganic pigment green 50 is a noxious mix of cobalt, titanium, nickel, and zinc oxide. The irony is that green can never be green, whatever it is dyed on to contaminates it, perhaps proving once and for all that nature can never be truly replicated.

Murder By The Book

A review of Murder by the Book, edited by Martin Edwards – 251208

Murder by the Book is another in the series of anthologies of short stories connected loosely by a theme carefully curated by Martin Edwards for the British Library Crime Classics series. The organizing theme around this collection is books either in the form of books or manuscripts themselves or those involved in their creation, authors, playwrights, or their dissemination, publishers and booksellers. Sometimes the connection with the theme are quite tangential. As usual, there is a mix of authors with whom I am familiar and a couple whom for me this is my first encounter in this volume of sixteen stories.

It is always a smart move to start off a book like this with a corker and G D H and Margaret Cole’s A Lesson in Crime hits the brief, a satirical tale of an encounter between a famous author and a critical fan in a railway carriage, its surprising outcome, and the tables are turned delightfully. The premise does not bear much scrutiny, but it is gloriously entertaining.      

There are three other stand outs for me. First, Malice Domestic by Philip MacDonald, a story in which an author, Carl Boden, trapped in an unhappy marriage starts to experience stomach pains which his doctor believes are caused by poison. Beautifully written, it lures you into thinking that there can only be one possible outcome, only to pull the rug from under your feet. This is short story writing at its best.

Victor Canning’s A Question of Character also involves a marriage on the rocks, where the husband, a once successful writer, Geoffrey Gilroy, is being eclipsed by his wife, Martha. We follow the meticulous planning of what is to be the perfect murder complete with unimpeachable alibi. However, Martha is much smarter than he gives her credit for and the tables are turned.  

Christianna Brand’s Dear Mr Editor takes the form of a letter written to a literary editor. It is so unusual and unlike any other of the stories in the collection that it cannot help standing out and reinforces her reputation as an innovative and inventive author in a genre that can often seem a tad world-weary.

Roy Vickers’ A Man and his Mother-in-Law is another worthwhile addition to the collection, yet another case of unhappy marital relationships – is this really a trait of the literary circle? – and amply demonstrates that even in the abbreviated form of a short story there is room for vivid and convincing characterization.

There are stories in which detectives, perhaps better known in novels, play a central role including Roderick Alleyn in Ngaio Marsh’s Chapter and Verse, which like much of her work I found so so, Nigel Strangeways in Nicholas Blake’s A Slice of Bad Luck, a murder at the Assassins’ Club, John Appleby in Michale Innes’ Grey’s Ghost and Philip Trent in E C Bentley’s Trent and the Ministering Angel. The latter was my favourite of the quartet, using clues in the botanical names of plants in a rockery to ensure that justice was done.

Julian Symons’ The Clue in the Book and Gladys Mitchell’s The Manuscript failed to hit the spot for me while Marjorie Bremner’s Murder in Advance began with great promise only to peter out by taking the easy option. One oddity is S C Roberts’ The Strange Case of the Megatherium Thefts which is about a theft (of books, obviously) rather than murder and is a rather inconsequential Sherlock Holmes story written by someone other than the master. Why settle for a tribute band when you can have the real McCoy?

With contributions from A A Milne, a rather mundane tale from a writer I had not associated with crime fiction, and a foray into the Indian sub-continent from John Creasey in Book of Honour, a tad too moralistic for my taste, and a typically whimsical piece from Edmund Crispin, who wins the prize for the longest title, a short story in itself, this collection has something for everyone and demonstrates that there is danger lurking even in the quiet backwaters of the literary world. Great stuff!

A Tissue

The existential fight for survival that is warfare can be the mother of invention. In the UK we consume around 1.25 million tonnes of paper tissue a year, the paper tissue being handier and probably more hygienic to use than a linen handkerchief. They owe their origin to the First World War.

With shortages of raw materials, the Kimberley-Clark company, founded in 1872 to produce and sell high-quality writing paper and paper for newspapers, invented a material called “cellucotton”, which was used initially to line gas masks with instead of cotton which was needed for field dressings and bandages. The key to cellucotton was the creping process, in which paper was micro-folded during the production process. This broke down the rigidity of the paper and increased its volume, making it softer and more absorbent.

After the war had ended, Kimberley-Clark looked for a commercial application for their new material and came up with a sanitary pad, Kotex. By layering several sheets of tissue, they developed a soft pillow with much greater absorbency than the traditional cotton wool.

In 1924 they launched a facial tissue, which was advertised as a make-up remover used by famous cinema stars of the time. However, its seems that the public saw a wider application for this new tissue than the company manufacturing it had, many apparently writing to Kimberley-Clark suggesting its use against colds and flu. Seeing which way the wind was blowing, the company launched a major re-brand and Kleenex, advertised with the slogan “Don’t put a cold in your pocket” was born.

The name Kleenex is as synonymous with paper tissues today as is Hoover with vacuum cleaners.

The Dynasphere

An inventor has to be a mix of the visionary, an iconoclast willing to challenge the status quo, and a little bit mad. Dr John Archibald Purves, the man who introduced the world to the Dynasphere, dubbed the high speed vehicle of the future, seems to fit the bill perfectly.

So, what was the Dynasphere. Modern Mechanics in its June 1932 edition explained all. Inside the wheel, on either side, tracks run completely around. The motor is geared to the track so that, when the engine is started, the motor pulls the track toward it and so starts the wheel in motion. Centre of gravity is low to prevent the wheel from tipping over.

The weight of the motor and driver is sufficient to keep them always parallel with the ground—if the driving apparatus were sufficiently light, the motor might conceivably climb up the geared track instead of pulling it and the attached wheel around. Speeds of thirty miles an hour, with two occupying the seat, have been comfortably attained. The lattice-work in front of the driver’s eyes disappears when the wheel is in motion, flashing past so rapidly that he has a good view of the road he is travelling.”

Margaret Partridge, writing in the 1934 edition of Women Engineer noted that its controls were similar to those of “an ordinary car” and that its inability to skid was due to the fact that its propulsion was not dependent upon the “mutual pull between wheel and road”. In other words, Purves had devised a large monowheel that accommodated two people and was long lasting due to the lack of deterioration that friction creates. Partridge argued that its “mobility, economy, and efficiency” made it superior to any other vehicle around.

A filmed test drive was held on a beach at Weston-super-Mare in 1932, after which Purves claimed that the Dynasphere had “reduced locomotion to the simplest possible form, with consequent economy of power”. He had two prototypes, one with a 2.5 hp petrol engine, sufficient to propel the 1,000 lb wheel, and the other powered by electricity. In 1935, he developed a bus version, capable of holding more passengers.

Sadly, though, the car of the future had no future. While it moved perfectly well, it proved almost impossible to steer or brake. Perhaps even more disconcertingly, the Dynasphere was prone to the phenomenon of “gerbiling”, the tendency when accelerating or braking for the independent housing holding the driver within the monowheel to spin within the moving structure.

And so, the dream of roads filled with electrically propelled monowheels remained just that.