INDUSTRIES 



Mr. William Wilson became the first chair- 

 man of the company, and his sons, Mr. James 

 P. Wilson and Mr. George F. Wilson, the 

 two managing directors. Mr. William Wil- 

 son died in i860 and Mr. J. P. Wilson in 

 1890. Mr. G. F. Wilson, F.R.S., until his 

 death on 2$ March 1902, continued as a 

 director to give the company the benefit of 

 his unique experience, whilst Mr. John Cal- 

 derwood, the late managing director and the 

 writer of the article on ' Candles ' in the last 

 edition of Chambers's Encyclopaedia died so 

 recently as 20 August 1903. 



A short account of Price's candle factory 

 published in 1850 refers to it as an extraor- 

 dinary instance of the capability of private 

 capital and energies.* Attention is especially 

 drawn to the possession by the company of 

 its own cocoa-nut plantations in Ceylon, 

 whence the palm oil used in its manufacture 

 was brought. The moulds in which the 

 candles were run, the machines by which the 

 wicks were cut, and the hydraulic presses by 

 which the oil was pressed through filtering 

 mats, all showed a vast improvement and a 

 total change in the operations of the candle 

 manufecture. The number of hydraulic 

 presses used was thirty-six of 250 tons each. 

 Three hundred men in light agreeable work- 

 shops performed the whole of the immense 

 business with a quiet and comparative absence 

 from smoke and disagreeable odour very dif- 

 ferent from even small establishments on the 

 old system. Patent candles of every kind 

 were made for the supply of both high and 

 low priced markets, and those made for the 

 East and West Indies were of such a consis- 

 tency as to be unaffected by the hottest 

 weather. 



A new candle material was introduced in 

 1850 in the shape of paraffin wax which was 

 first manufectured in this country under the 

 patent granted to Mr. (afterwards Dr.) James 

 Young in that year. Despite the beautiful 

 transparency of paraffin it was unable to 

 supersede stearine, for it lacks the stability, 

 especially in warm atmospheres, of the latter 

 and needs admixture therewith. Price's 

 Company were not slow to take up the new 

 material and, thanks to an invention intro- 

 duced in 1 87 1 by one of their own staff, Mr. 

 J. Hodges, and patented, they were enabled 

 to refine it more economically and safely than 

 was possible by any previously known method. 

 After the expiry of this patent, the process 

 became almost universally adopted with modi- 

 fications in the plant employed. Down to 



1 Brayley and Britton, Hist, of Surr. v. App. 

 41, 42. 



1882 however stearine candles alone were 

 exported to warm climates, but an important 

 experiment made by the company in that 

 year led to the introduction of ' paraffin com- 

 posite ' candles. These having stood the test 

 of use in many markets where the tempera- 

 ture is higher than in Great Britain became 

 established favourites and resulted in a great 

 increase in the company's business abroad. 

 The great increase in the production of solid 

 paraffin which has taken place in the United 

 States within the last ten to twenty years has 

 rendered the utilization of this material a 

 matter of moment. 



Although the company has given most of 

 its attention to the manufacture and refining 

 of candle materials, it has contributed also in 

 no small measure to the improvements effected 

 in other branches of the industry, notably to 

 the evolution of the modern candle-moulding 

 machinery and to the manufacture of night- 

 lights or * mortars ' as they were originally 

 called. For the latter the company acquired 

 in 1848 a patent held by Mr. G. M. Clarke, 

 and in 1849 the night-light business of Mr. 

 Samuel Childs. In 1853 Mr. George Wil- 

 son introduced moulded cocoa-stearine lights 

 and now, like that of candle making, the night- 

 light branch of the business has reached a 

 paraffin stage and has steadily grown in im- 

 portance, notwithstanding that it has had to 

 meet the increasing competition of rival 

 makers. 



So far we have been solely concerned with 

 the primary and most important branch of 

 the business of Price's Company — the manu- 

 facture of candles. From the account we 

 have given of the change that has come over 

 this manufacture consequent on the scientific 

 discoveries of Chevreul as to the nature of fats, 

 it will be readily understood that there must 

 now be a considerable residuum from the 

 materials used, which from the candle maker's 

 point of view must be regarded as waste pro- 

 ducts. The utilization of these products led 

 in the first place to the company developing 

 other branches of its business which have since 

 acquired considerable importance. 



After the liberation of the solid stearine 

 from the fats two liquid products are obtained, 

 oleic acid (known in commerce as oleine) and 

 glycerine. The use of oleine for oiling wood 

 was first introduced on the continent but was 

 for some time regarded with suspicion by 

 British mill owners. But after acquiring a 

 French patent and taking advantage of the 

 patented improvements of Messrs. J. P. & 

 G. F. Wilson the company succeeded in 

 producing a refined oleine which dispelled 

 the fears of the mill owners and which, known 



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