The Worshipful Company of Dyers
THE DYEING CRAFT Illustrating the journey of alum in the eighteenth century By Phil O’Farrell
The Worshipful Company of Dyers
THE DYEING CRAFT The Dyeing Craft windows were installed at Dyers’ Hall in February 2018. This booklet accompanies and explains the windows’ graphic illustrations.
Contents
Page
Introduction to the Window Commission
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1 A Need for Urine 6 2 Taking the Piss 8 3 Sourcing the Rest 10 4
Eighteenth Century Alchemy
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How to Dye, Permanently
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Exit Alum, Pursued by Aniline
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Further Information 18
The Dyeing Trade Exhibition, January 2018
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Printed in the UK. Š Phil O’Farrell 2017-2018. All rights reserved.
Left Words, illustrations & window design by Phil O’Farrell. Photo Š Asadour Guzelian 2018
Introduction to the Window Commission After several years of aspiration, during 2015 an imaginative outline design for prestigious lavatories and cloakroom was determined by a Working Group of Court Assistants. This was to be by way of conversion of the basement below the Dyers’ Offices from a previously tenanted office. The cloakroom was to be connected by a new staircase to the Livery Hall for the use of Liverymen and their guests. In March 2016 Mr Ian Court MRICS, The Dyers’ Company’s chartered surveyor, on behalf of the Company, went out to building contractors to tender for the work. At that time, Mr Court recommended to the Working Group that a specialist interior designer architect be appointed to achieve the highest quality appearance and finishes for the cloakroom and lavatories. After a competitive tendering process, Mr Phil O’Farrell was appointed to fulfil this role. The evidence of his skill can be seen by anyone who visits the Hall and the lavatories have been described as the most elegant in London. Amongst many stylish ideas, Phil O’Farrell suggested that the windows in the lavatories could be stained glass and the Working Group liked the idea, suggesting that the theme should be the historic use of urine in the process of dyeing. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century human urine was collected in London and shipped to Yorkshire where the textile trade, including dyeing, was flourishing. Phil O’Farrell picked up this idea, undertaking a considerable amount of research and bringing his artistic skills to the designs described in this booklet. The windows were manufactured by Karl Theobald of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire and installed at Dyers’ Hall in February 2018. J R Vaizey The Clerk, Worshipful Company of Dyers 5
1 A Need for Urine Before the twentieth century alum was used as a mordant, an essential ingredient of the textile industry used to fix long-lasting dyes. The Vatican had a monopoly on Italian alum mines so, when Henry VIII was excommunicated and the export banned, a home grown solution was urgently required. Enter Sir Thomas Chaloner. He set up a new mordant industry almost from scratch at the turn of the seventeenth century. The process of manufacturing alum from British ingredients was very complicated, and the scale of operations around the Yorkshire coast became vast. Ravenscar and Whitby are bounded by cliffs of shale, an important first ingredient. However, alum production from slate also requires large quantities of human urine. At first this was obtained locally, then further north from Newcastle. Eventually the industry became so large that barrels of urine were shipped from the capital. Full buckets were left on street corners ready for collection by night soil men. These were used to fill barrels which were taken to the docks once a week. Right This pair of windows shows collection outside The Bunch of Grapes, a pub that once stood at the corner of College Street and Dowgate Hill, where these windows are now installed. In fact, the best quality urine was usually found in poor neighbourhoods where the product was unpolluted by expensive wines and spirits.
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2 Taking the Piss Brigs sailing the East Coast of Britain would bring coal from Yorkshire and make the return journey laden with barrels of urine, leading the sailors to be accused of taking the piss.
Left Pinnaces being used to load barrels of urine, among other goods, at the Pool of London.
Right An eighteenth century brig under sail up the East coast of England to Whitby and the alum works. 8
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3 Sourcing the Rest The stale urine was used to create ammonia, the first of three key ingredients of the mordant. The second was potassium, which was obtained by toasted kelp, seen here in crates at the bottom of the panel.
Left The cliffs of Robin Hood’s Bay. Winching crates of seaweed and barrels of urine up the cliffs was reasonable work for a stevedore on a sunny day, but potentially hazardous and very unpleasant in a storm. 10
Finally, vast quantities of shale were needed. Aluminous shale contains trace amounts of bound aluminium which was not easy to extract. First the shale was roasted for nine months. Piles of brushwood were burnt underneath huge clamps - tall mounds of shale up to twenty metres high. The red hot shale was then combined with water to create aluminium sulphate and channeled down to the alum works.
Right Shale clamps at Ravenscar. The rugged hills dotted along the Yorkshire coast are in no small part formed by the spoil heaps from the long forgotten quarries. Visit Ravenscar or the Loftus alum quarries today and you can still hike over them if you don’t mind navigating the gorse bushes. 11
4 Eighteenth Century Alchemy The process of creating alum in Britain was especially complicated. Unlike in Italy, British mines didn’t produce alum straight from the ground, so the Italian export ban created a sudden, and potentially very profitable, need for home grown invention. Within his enormous alum houses Thomas Chaloner effectively created the world’s first chemical industry. Back at the shale quarry, pits were dug and filled with water. The newly red rock from the shale clamps was tipped into the water. This formed an aluminium sulphate solution that was channeled down long stone gutters to the alum works where it was boiled and allowed to settle. After further heating and evaporation the stale urine and burnt seaweed ashes could be added. This liquid was then cooled and allowed to crystallise. To prevent crystals of ferrous sulphate from forming, fresh hens’ eggs were added to the solution to test its density. At just the right point all the remaining liquid was drained and pure alum could be washed, packed and shipped to dyers and tanners around the country.
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Right The crystallisation process took place in enormous alum houses. 13
Left Rolls of cotton are passed through troughs of alum solution. The fabric is then immersed in vats of dye. 14
5 How to Dye, Permanently Most natural dyes need a mordant to fix the colour to the fibre. The mordant is the chemical link that fixes the dye to the textile by combining with the dye pigment to form an insoluble compound. For many centuries alum was by far the cheapest and safest type of mordant to produce at scale. Silk, leather, cotton and wool were all tanned or dyed using Yorkshire alum as a mordant until well into the nineteenth century.
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6 Exit Alum, Pursued by Aniline It was a by-product of a different industry - gas lighting - that finally displaced alum. Waste from town gas works could be converted into aniline, allowing synthetic dyes to be produced cheaply enough to disrupt the Yorkshire alum trade. Aniline contains its own mordant so alum was no longer needed in the textile mills. However, synthetic alum is still used today, mostly in water treatment plants, but also as a key ingredient of glue and baking powder!
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Right Dressmaking with the finished fabric. 17
Further Information The Dyeing Craft windows are situated at Dyers’ Hall, 10 Dowgate Hill, London. The windows were designed by Phil O’Farrell and manufactured by Karl Theobald within the Northlight Art Studios, a non-profit co-operative in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.
To see more of Karl’s stained glass work visit www.karltheobaldstainedglass.uk For more information on the artist collective visit www.northlightstudio.co.uk For more design by Phil O’Farrell visit www.philofarrell.co.uk
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Right In January 2018, as part of The Dyeing Trade exhibition, the windows were publicly displayed in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. The exhibition is documented online at philofarrell.co.uk/dyeing
Right The glazing was manufactured and installed by Karl Theobald.
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