4 WILLIAM GOSSAGE 



which chemical industries are constructed. 

 Whenever Gossage failed to secure the prize 

 of absolute success, it was not that his 

 chemistry was at fault, but that he had not to 

 his hand the mechanical appliances he needed. 

 It is surprising how ingenious and successful 

 were his contrivances of apparatus, con- 

 sidering he had not received a practical 

 training in mechanical engineering : but he 

 knew how to appreciate talent in other men, 

 and to excite in them enthusiastic co-operation. 

 One instance of this may be recorded. When 

 he was erecting his soap plant, he discovered 

 in Mr. Wm. Neill, of Bold, near St. Helens, 

 whose comparatively early death was a loss 

 to the district, a mechanic of rare ability ; and 

 the perfect arrangements of plant in that 

 most successful undertaking, are in no small 

 measure to be attributed to Neill's capacity 

 of carrying out Gossage's ideas and require- 

 ments. 



No patents are taken out between 1828 

 and 1836. Having left his uncle's at Chester- 

 field, he went into the same business, on his 

 own account, at Leamington, and became a 

 manufacturer of Leamington salts. At 

 Leamington he did not long remain, but 

 removed to Stoke Prior, in Worcestershire, 



