Re: Reckitts Blue (was Prospecting - Here's to Copper!


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Previous # Next ] [ Start New Thread ] [ TarBoard ]

Posted by Jock on October 23, 2007 at 20:23:05 from 87.105.81.146 user Jock.

In Reply to: Re: Reckitts Blue (was Prospecting - Here's to Copper! posted by Peter H on October 23, 2007 at 18:15:07:

I have not heard of copper compounds being used by 'washerfolk', but maybe it is or was somewhere.

Good point! Early washing blue relied on cobalt and other natural pigments. I wonder if shirts washed in a solution of a cobalt salt turned pink on ironing? (Anhydrous copper salts are pink.) Reckitts Blue and similar products relied on synthetically produced ultramarine. As Peter has already told us, this was manufactured, among other places, in Backbarrow on the River Leven. In the 19th century child labour was used.

The distressing story of the ill treated Backbarrow cotton mill child workers is well documented. By 1814 well over 100 ÒapprenticesÓ were employed in the Backbarrow Cotton Mill. These were orphans drown from workhouses in Liverpool, London and Brighton.

In 1816, a parliamentary Select Committee took evidence from witnesses. John Moss, former apprentice master testified that several children were crippled as a result of their labours. There were no seats provided anywhere and the drudge of a fifteen hour day was broken by a total of one hour for meal breaks.

If the River Leven water level ran low, then a night shift was introduced. Slack business resulted in ÒapprenticesÓ turned out of the mill and their sleeping accommodation to beg. One notable occasion saw young children taken onto Òthe SandsÓ (i.e. on the cross Morecambe Bay route) for what purported to be a picnic. However, the masters abandoned the children to take their chances with the swift, unpredictable tides to, hopefully, find their way towards Lancaster to beg.

The chemical composition of ultramarine is quite complicated. Essentialy it's a complex sulphur-containing sodio-silicate. The blue colour comes from the S3- radical anion, and more specifically, the radical's unpaired electron.

[Oops. If I have exceeded TarBoard's permissible Beckfoot plumbing quotient, I apologise in advance.]


Follow Ups:



Post a Followup

Name:
Eel-Mail:

Existing subject (please edit appropriately) :

or is it time to start a New Thread?

Comments:

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:

post direct to TarBoard test post first

Before posting it is necessary to be a registered user.


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TarBoard ]

Courtesy of Environmental Science, Lancaster

space