Charles Joseph Singer (1876–1960)

That’s “Israel” as in the people. What we have here is a collection of essays from various hands that explores the cultural influence of Jews on the cultures around them over time. It’s very much a cross-party affair with contributors Jewish and Christian. On the whole it’s an interesting and enjoyable read, but not all essays are to the same standard.

I was particularly looking forward to “The Influence of Judaism on Islam”, as I’m interested in both religions. Ironically, show more this turned out to be the worst of the bunch. It’s full of snide and contemptuous comments about Mohammed and Muslims generally, and the author makes racist comments about Arabs. I also noticed a few factual errors. The fuck? If I wanted to hear this sort of thing I’d go down the pub. Those errors and the hostility made me doubt the truth of a lot of what he was telling me. I did actually consider once or twice if he were deliberately lying. The author was a professor at Durham. That’s a good university.

The antidote to that sort of thing is the very next essay where the Singers are able to discuss the interplay of Judaism and Islam in a completely normal and grown up kind of a way. In fact, the following three essays (two by the Singers and one by no less a personage than G H Box) are particularly good. In a series of thumbnail sketches of writers and their work they trace European history from the pit of the Dark Ages through to the Renaissance. Very interesting to see this sweep of time from a new perspective.

So on the whole worth dipping in to. You’ll definitely learn something and will be able to impress your friends, or your mother, if you don’t have any friends.

There’s also a very good essay on Judaism in the Hellenistic period by Edwyn Bevan that really falls outside the remit of the book, but is the kind of thing you can get away with if you’re the co-editor.

The Epilogue, by C G Montefiore, talks about his hopes and fears for the future of Judaism in Europe. It’s interesting, but not an easy read, looking back on his words from the other side of the Holocaust. show less

"This book is a sodden mess of Victorian platitudes and inconsistencies. It perpetuates a great over-rating of Greek culture and complete neglect of Eastern culture - even after the revelations of the archeology of Persepolis." Dr. William G. Houk

Review of Charles Singer: The Earliest Chemical Industry London, the Folio Society 1948

The subtitle is An Essay in the Historical relations of Economics and Technology illustrated from the Alum Trade.

This is a substantial book and as the title and then subtitle indicates, it is about the economic and technical history of one specific subset of the chemical industry, namely the Alum industry. The book was commissioned, after the second world war by the company Peter Spence and Son of show more Manchester to commemorate the 1946 centenary of the firm. It is extraordinary that the Folio Society was specially commissioned to produce a high quality book of substance, seriousness and depth and hence of lasting importance. This was a happy marriage of centenary, top level scholarship and quality printing.

It is a handsomely produced book , at folio size with over a hundred illustrations, woodcuts, maps, line drawings, scientific diagrams. The many rich coloured plates from a variety of sources are tipped in and there is a fold out plate. The extensive set of notes identify the original sources used by the author in research.

In celebrating a hundred years of history, the company had survived the second world war in a reasonably prosperous condition and had the funds to invest in a beautifully produced book.

The book was designed and published by the Folio Society for Peter Spence and Sons, Limited. The text was composed in Baskerville type and printed on Arnold’s mould-made paper by Chiswick Press, who also printed the monochrome collotype plates. Colour- collotype plates were printed by Alinari of Florence. Line and half tone blocks by Craske, Vaus and Crampton. Maps by George Philip and Son. The Colophon specially engraved on copper by Stephen Gooden. The edition is limited to 1100 numbered copies . Numbers 1-1—were hand bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe in full read cape morocco and signed by the author and Derek Spence. Numbers 1-1 to 1100 was bound by Messrs. Henry Stevenson.

Today this book is a much sought after and is regarded as a rare and early Folio society book, dating from a time when Charles Ede, the founder of the Folio Society accepted special commissions. The 1948 Folio edition was thus not a reprint of another work and was never subsequently republished, hence its current rarity.

My copy is numbered 373. and bound in red buckram and sadly with a sun faded spine, has a pasted letter from Peter Spence and Son Ltd of Manchester. It was sent as a gift to someone who lived in Egypt, and says the following “For a long time now, in fact since about 1940, we have been working on a book dealing with the History of Alum in order to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the company, which took place in 1946. Due unfortunately to war conditions, the publication of the book has been considerably delayed but I now have very much pleasure in sending you, both as one of our oldest friends and large customers, a copy and hope that you will enjoy reading it. Much of the early history of alum concerns Egypt and should, therefore, prove particularly interesting to one who , like yourself, lives in that country" signed by Derek Spence (who contributed the Preface and was the then managing director).

Sue Bradbury in "A Brief History" essay in Folio 60, (2007) states:

" Among other activities which saved the Society from bankruptcy in its early days was the design and production of commissioned books. Ironically, the only folio-sized volume which the Society produced in those early years was a history of alum entitled The Earliest Chemical Industry (1948). Written by Professor Charles Singer to celebrate the anniversary of a mining company near Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire, it was not only extremely readable but has since proved to be an important contribution to the subject: indeed, Folio's copy was consulted by Adam Hart-Davis as part of his research into a series of television programmes..."

I imagine that all copies were distributed by the firm as a gift, as the production run was a limited edition of 1100, of which 100 were bound in full red morocco, and signed by both Singer and Spence.

There is a tradition of commissioning glossy company and bank histories, which fit into the category “ the history of the firm” . These are those often dreary, hagiographic commemorative editions with portrait photos of company founders, current directors and dignitaries. Too often written by paid journalists or should I say hacks, these books are of relatively limited use to academic scholarship. They often dwell on the minutia of company performance, forgetting the larger economic context .

This makes Singer’s work for the Peter Spence company so unusual . It is impressive in its own right as a product of serious scholarship by a brilliant scholar. The fact that it is not a company history at all is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It is a history of a mineral, manufacturing , its trade and an industry. It brings together his impressive knowledge of linguistics, history, economic history, science and medicine. We learn relatively little about the history of the company, so there are tantalizing gaps as to where the company was located and when did the company relocate from the Manchester area. Or was the company head office retained in Manchester but mining activities was conducted elsewhere.

I have gleaned that the Pendleton works near Manchester were founded in 1846 by Peter Spence and the works at Goole in Yorkshire were erected in 1854. Apart from the Spence company works at Manchester and Goole, in 1881, Spence informed a Parliamentary committee that the only other considerable manufacturer of alum in Britain was at Wakefield near Leeds in Yorkshire. Today the old Alum Works at Wakefield, is described as “situated on the site of the old Armitage’s Brickworks, which is now just another housing estate”.

This raises the query as to whether Spence and Company also acquired the Yorkshire alum chemical plant (the Peak Alum works). Not likely if that plant closed as early as 1862 when the price of alum fell to 8 pounds stg per ton ( and hence could not complete with the Spence company success) . Or was Bradbury wrong in her bibliographic essay in locating the Spence Plant in Yorkshire?

I have found a 1927 aerial photograph posted on Britain from Above 1919-1953 website http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw019343 showing a view of The Bell's Poilite and Everite Co. and Peter Spence and Sons Alum Works, Farnworth, Halton which is near Bolton in the industrial midlands of England.

The preface (1948) was written by the managing director, Derek Spence who was the great grandson of Peter Spence who had founded the company in 1846. The tribute to Peter Spence, (1806 – 1883) the founder reads “ The position he attained in the industrial life of his country was largely the result of the revolutionary improvements which he himself introduced in the manufacture of alum. He obtained alum from sources hitherto untapped, by methods which he himself devised”. Chapter 10 elaborates on Peter Spence’s scientific innovations in the 19th century and explains why Manchester was the company’s location. He sought cheap fuel supplies and it was Spence who discovered. that he could manufacture alum at a lower price and in greater quantities by treating shale from coal mines with commercially produced sulphuric acid. Improvements in the quality of the alum produced by Spence ( by 1882 he was producing in excess of 10 000 tons of alum a year) and had become the dominant world supplier and the price had dropped . Spence held a number of patents. His own life story highlights business success in Britain, a world wide and empire reach, the use of patents to protect and advance his business interests and confident experimentation in science to gain a competitive edge. Dyes , initially natural and later aniline dyes were critical to the expansion and success of the British textile industry and alum was an essential mineral to the industry. The British industrial revolution was anchored in textiles, coal, steam power, railways and shipping , engineering. Sound chemistry was a foundation stone, and enterprising pioneers brought together capital, innovation and scientific expertise in the 19th century leading industrial cities, such as Manchester. The Spence family were among their number.

Alum as this book explores had a long history as an important industrial ingredient. Singer traces evidence of alum mining and use to Egyptian, Greek and Mesopotamian times. Alum was used in the treatment of leather by shoemakers. As early as the medieval period alum was keenly sought by the textile industry, where it was used as a fixing agent for coloured dyes in wool fabrics. Singer writes about the history of the medieval trade and the imposition of monopolies in Italy.

To quote from Oxford Archaeology “ In chemical terms, alum is a group of double salts that contain aluminium sulphate in combination with a second sulphate (either potassium or ammonium). Alum can form as a natural mineral (alunite) under volcanic conditions, where it solidifies from solution to form large crystals of a characteristic shape”. It does not occur in a pure state in Britain, but a breakthrough came with the discovery that alum could be made from certain types of shale. This was the origin of the title of the Singer book – the “earliest chemical industry”. (http://thehumanjourney.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=117)

Alum is a useful chemical product with widespread uses in taxidermy, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, water purification and paper manufacture .

Charles Singer the author was himself a scholar of note. He qualified as a medical doctor but made his name as a researcher and distinguished historian of science . His last great publication before retirement was A Short History of Scientific Ideas to 1900 ( published 1941) . Singer was a friend of Derek Spence and wrote this book in retirement. Singer was the editor of the five volume , History of Technology published between 1954 and 1958. He died in 1960 .
In 1949 Peter Pence and Sons the chemical manufacturers of Widnes presented a collection of 17th to 20th century books used by Dr Charles Singer in writing The earliest chemical industry: an essay in the historical relations of economics and technology illustrated from the alum trade (Folio Society, 1948) . to the University of Liverpool.
The collection, now housed in their special collections and archives, and contains early mineralogical works, treatises on mineral waters, guide books and accounts of volcanoes, including Sir William Hamilton's Campi Phlegri (Naples, 1776) with hand-coloured plates of volcanic eruptions, one of which is produced in the volume as a fold –out plate (p 172)
The company, Peter Spence and Son, was an English chemical company that started operations in the 1840s; it was a family business ( as a private limited company). it was incorporated as Peter Spence 1900 but went into voluntary liquidated in 2011 and was dissolved in 2012 . By that date it seems that there were no directors with the surname of Spence and the web database show all directors to be inactive. Its business address is listed as Milton Keynes. Clearly the company had suffered declining fortunes, perhaps symptomatic of British manufacturing and industrial decline. The irony is that with 65 years of the centenary of the company and the production of such a magnificent book and work of scholarship, it remains a tangible relic and treasure, whereas the mines and the companies that made Britain the first industrial nation and financed this type of book, no longer exist.

My own interest in the subject matter and the book came from several strands- I am a keen collector of Folio books. But my father worked for a major African chemical company and hence I grew up with an awareness about the importance of chemicals in industry. My mother on the other hand swore by a medical chest which contained Dutch remedies, pharmaceutical chemicals and alum was a household astringent in that little chest good of sore throats and cold sores. Later I became an academic economic historian and developed an interest in British economic history and topography. Company and business history was a subset of my interests. Reading Singer was always a pleasure and this particular volume brings rewards this reader for many reasons.
An attractive illustrated review of the Singer book is also to be located at the blog site for simon on http://thebookexaminer.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/the-earliest-chemical-industry/
This book earns my five stars. show less

My father gave this to me when I was very young, perhaps 11 or twelve. I loved it and it influenced a lot of my choices in life. He wanted me to learn to discount my interest in magic and move on to science, but the opposite occurred. I will treasure this book always.