At several events, Perkin’s name was used as a tool. He became a symbol of every British pioneer whose work was only fully exploited abroad. There was the mauve story, there was the penicillin story, and many other stories told in the aftermath of empire. There was much truth in them, and they were principally used as a warning, a morality tale. Modern scientists and engineers would say, ‘Here’s another new development which we mustn’t let slip,’ and in 1956 Perkin’s was the classic example.
In Manchester, the Midland Hotel was host to an event in which the local dyers sported mauve nylon handkerchiefs. The Midlands section of the SDC met for a dinner-dance at the Welbeck Hotel in Nottingham, during which there was a presentation of mauve lace handkerchiefs for the ladies. The Huddersfield section took part in a Perkin item on the BBC’s The Week Ahead. The Northern Ireland section celebrated at Thompson’s Restaurant, Belfast, with an address from the Courtaulds dyer John Boulton. ‘I have been driven to reflect upon the question of what kind of man is a Perkin,’ he began. ‘How comes it that there are so few of them?’ He concluded that a Perkin was the sort of man who made great use of the things that happened to him. He was not the sort of man who made anything of the science/industry/art divide, but embraced it all. ‘A person of much greater ability as an experimentalist and with a deeper knowledge as a scientist could easily have failed to make Perkin’s discovery had he not also something of William Henry Perkin’s make-up … he was great because he was what he was, and not because he made the discovery whose centenary we are honouring by our meeting tonight.’
The British Colour Council, which had given Perkin’s mauve the classification 225 in its colour index, suggested that there were seven fashionable shades in current use that were based directly on Perkin’s first colour: wild orchis, daphne pink, pink clover, sweet lavender, purple lilac, homage purple and violet.
Sir Patrick Linstead, Rector of Imperial College and the chemist who revealed the structure of the important phthalocyanines (a blue-to-green class of fast and brilliant dyes with a metallic core), opened a small month-long exhibition at the Science Museum: samples of natural dyes; a picture of the nineteenth-century woad mill near Wisbech; letters from Perkin, a few of his dyes; a panel on the work of the British Colour Council. A great success, the show was extended by two months.
But not all events were so popular. After the principal celebrations in London, W. Ronald Kirkpatrick, one of Perkin’s grandchildren, received a letter from John Nicholls, secretary of the London centenary celebrations, expressing that he ‘personally would have liked to see bigger attendances … It would seem that inside and outside the industry there appears to be a lack of understanding of the great value to the world [that] colour means in the very joy of living. Anyway, we had quality present on all occasions, if not quantity.’
And the science magazines were full of it. Nature suggested that it was quite possible that other chemists would have stumbled upon aniline dyes within a few years had Perkin not, but this in no way belittled Perkin’s achievements. The magazine supported Perkin’s own claim (in a lecture delivered in 1868) that ‘to introduce a new coal-tar colour after mauve was a comparatively simple matter. The difficulties of all the raw materials had been overcome, as well as the obstacles.’ Perkin was not just lucky: his initiative, resourcefulness, imagination and determination made him the leading technologist of his day, and Perkin’s real qualities and claim to remembrance were ‘exactly those which are still needed as Britain faces the social and industrial implications of an age in which coal will no longer form the sole basis of power or of technology’.
In the age of oil, Nature detected a growing indifference to the achievements of a coal-tar hero. In the national newspapers, the opportunity which the centenary offered of commending a career in technology to youth was ignored. ‘The contrast between the treatment by the Press of the celebrations of 1906 with those of 1956 suggests some neglect of responsibility.’ The Times almost completely ignored the event, briefly noting the exhibition at the Science Museum. The Daily Telegraph had little interest in Perkin or his disciples. But the Manchester Guardian made amends with a special supplement, in which it called on various British specialists to demonstrate how Perkin’s work had influenced most modern things between ‘the vibrant colours of a spring dress and the antibiotic drug saving the life of a desperately sick man’.
It featured Paul F. Spencer, the chief chemist at Cussons Sons and Company, who spoke of how Perkin’s synthetic coumarin was widely used in perfumery, how it helped to flavour tobacco, and how a derivative of coumarin had led to a superwhite bleaching agent in the detergent industry. (Coumarin is present as a major constituent in plants such as tonka beans and as a minor constituent in strawberries, cherries and apricots. Following experiments on rats it is now accepted as a carcinogen, and has been withdrawn from many brands of cigarettes.)
But the chief correspondent was Frank L. Rose, Research Manager at ICI Pharmaceuticals, who observed that speculation on what might have been is generally a useless pastime, but there was solid ground for suggesting that ‘without Perkin’s observation the progress of therapeutic medicine might have been delayed by as much as a generation’. He wrote of the work of Ehrlich and Domagk, of methylene blue and the sulfa drugs treatment of bacteria, but surmised that had Perkin not been the curious sort, the world might only then (1956) be at the beginning of its understanding of chemistry in relation to disease.
The accompanying display advertisements took a similar line and were probably the first to feature the colour mauve as a dominant motif. One was illustrated by four figures on a blackboard: 328, 238, 434 and 27.6 per cent – co-ordinates in the international CIE system of colour definition, corresponding roughly to the redness, greenness, blueness and lightness of mauve. ‘This example indicates the progress made in colour technology in recent times. It is 100 years since Sir William Perkin’s discovery. For over 80 of those years Chadwicks of Oldham have been using dyestuffs of better and better fastness …’
A familiar name took out an advert summarising Perkin’s visit in 1856. ‘Not only can Pullars of Perth fairly claim to have played a vital part in launching the greatest discovery in the history of dyeing, but only ten years later they introduced Dry Cleaning …’ The Shell Chemical Company paid for a line-drawing of a a conical flask placed over a bunsen burner, and next to it a sketch of an oil refinery, the source of its petroleum chemicals today. ‘Surely Sir William never dreamed it would grow to this …’
The last of the significant celebrations occurred in September at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists and twenty-six related trades gathered for a week of speeches on themes such as ‘Color – The Catalyst of Commerce’. In the middle of the week, the fiftieth Perkin Medal was presented to Edgar Britton for his work on the early synthesis of phenol (carbolic acid), whose derivatives are essential in weed-killers, fungicides and other agricultural chemicals. There was a posthumous Perkin Medal for Wallace Carothers for the discovery of nylon. Past recipients included Irving Langmuir for his development of the gas-filled incandescent electric light, Thomas Midgley for his work on non-detonating fuels for internal combustion engines, Robert Williams for the synthesis of vitamin B1 (thiamine), and Charles Hall for the commercial production of aluminium.†
While the centenary celebrants gathered their papers, their partners were treated to a cruise around Manhattan and a show called Cavalcade of Color, ‘A stage revue with music … dramatizing a century’s evolution of color as a compelling force in the creation, promotion and popular enjoyment of fashion.’ Other rooms at the hotel contained dioramas depicting plastics and pharmaceuticals industries. At nearby Grand Central Terminal, the Eastman Kodak Company staged a continuous slideshow of the preparation and development of modern colour film.
At the hotel, the serious business was conducted by experts in their fields. From food colour to military research, from ophthalmology to the graph
ic arts – aniline dyes once again had done it all. Some speakers told elegant histories. Morris Leikind, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC, recalled that when the great Dutch physician Hermann Boerhaave died in 1738, he left behind a booklet in which he promised to reveal all the secrets of medicine. It was blank, apart from the instruction ‘Keep the head cool, the feet warm and the bowels open.’ Only a few of the pages were filled in the next 118 years, Leikind claimed, citing the smallpox vaccination of Edward Jenner of 1798, the discovery of the mammalian ovum by von Baer in 1827, the numerous advances linked to microscopy and the development of anaesthesia in 1846. But after 1856 the blank pages began to fill rapidly. The secrets were ‘written in rainbow colours, aniline purple, Bismarck-brown, magenta, methylene blue’.
Such was the nature of proceedings: moist overstatement in the cause of tribute. A few guests became a little over-lyrical. One praised Perkin for increasing the colours of war: ‘There are the colours produced by flame munitions and weapons; by napalm bomb bursts; the colours of phosphorous shell explosions; the bright colours that mark bomb drops; fuming nitric acid and the gleaming white of the guided missile as it rises majestically and swiftly into the blue atmosphere.’
The most interesting new analysis came from Deane B. Judd at the National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC, who found that Perkin and his successors had made a significant contribution to the English language. Of the 7,500 colour names identified by this time, over 100 originated directly from synthetic dyes. (That is to say, while almost all the 7,500 could be made artificially, there were over 100 names – including anthracene green and naphthalene yellow – that originated purely from the chemist’s workbench. The other sources include 528 flowers (from amaryllis to wisteria), 427 proper names of places (Antwerp brown to Zanzibar brown), 340 pure colour names (black, blue, red), 290 pigments (chrome green), 254 fruits (apricot, banana), 239 foods (brown sugar, yolk yellow), 221 peoples (Tyrian purple, Dutch blue), 214 substances (amber, asphalt), 200 personal names (Robin Hood green, Salome pink), 183 botany (acacia), 149 common things (brick red), 144 natural dyes (indigo, madder), 133 birds (bluejay) and 133 animals (buff – from buffalo). There were 125 jewels (amethyst), 123 metals (brass), 121 geographical elements (glacier blue), 117 alcoholic drinks (absinthe), 107 trees (willow green), 105 atmospherical features (aurora yellow), 83 weather aspects (smog), 82 moods (blue funk), 79 abstract things (triumph blue), 72 romance and passion (golden rapture), 64 minerals (agate), 60 old things (antique brown), 59 end-use (battleship grey), 56 fable and superstition (goblin scarlet), 55 time of day (midnight blue), 50 marine life (coral), 50 undyed textiles (ecru), 46 mythology (Bacchus), 36 ceramic (Wedgwood blue), 31 religious occupations (cardinal purple), and 20 human (nude).
There were hundreds of others. Of the 108 registered names of original synthetic dyes, the two that most people had heard of were magenta and mauve.
*
In March 1981, a man called Edward G. Jefferson arrived at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel to pay tribute to William Perkin and tell a few stories. He shared the occasion with 500 other chemists, ostensibly to eat duck and award another Perkin Medal to a person of consequence. Jefferson, as president of the American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, gave the welcoming address.
Everyone knew Jefferson. A few months before, in his role as President of the DuPont chemical company, Jefferson had made a big noise in the business pages when he announced that after more than 60 years, DuPont was getting out of dyes. Since its invention of Lycra, dyes were no longer the most interesting or profitable thing at the company, and it had decided to sell the division.
DuPont had been in dyes since 1917, another venture begun when the war curtailed the supply of dyes from Germany. DuPont’s big thing was sulphur black and indigo, but it tried its hand at most colours. It was big on cosmetic and hair dyes.
These days there is hardly a home in the industrialised West which does not contain at least one item trademarked by DuPont – be it nylon, Teflon, Lycra, cellophane or any one of hundreds of medicines and petroleum-based products. But DuPont is not a twentieth-century phenomenon: it is claimed that without DuPont America itself would be unrecognisable.
Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, a French nobleman and publisher, met President Thomas Jefferson in Paris in 1784 and helped him draft the peace treaty that ended the American War of Independence. Later, faced with political upheaval, du Pont fled for America with his son, who was persuaded by Jefferson that he should use his knowledge of chemistry to manufacture gunpowder. Du Pont soon had a huge explosives mill, supplied the Union forces during the Civil War, and established an empire that by 1999 had annual revenues approaching $30 billion and employed 84,000 staff in seventy countries.
At the Perkin dinner, the men were still obliged to wear mauve bow-ties (women were now allowed into these events, and some wore mauve ribbons). The dye for the ties had come from DuPont, but it had been an ordeal. ‘The DuPont Company was asked to produce a new lot of mauve two years ago, and we confidently assigned this task to our dye experts at the Chambers Works,’ Edward Jefferson, a descendant of the president, explained. ‘Unfortunately, our first attempt to produce this gorgeous hue failed so badly that the material was flatly rejected by the Society’s standards committee and we had to try again. Again we failed, but on the third attempt we were successful, although I’m told that even then our product barely got by. In any event, we were so chastened by the experience that the DuPont Company decided to go out of the manufacture of dyes, and we have just recently sold our entire dye business.’
Roars of laughter from the chemists, who never once believed that Jefferson was being serious. After the meal, the Perkin Medal was awarded to Ralph Landau, from Philadelphia, for important work on nylon and polyester.
*
Twelve miles west of Landau’s home town, out on Route 3, lies Newtown Square, an unremarkable place ignored by the tourist guides. On its perimeter, past several churches and a sign that reads NO GUNNING IN NEWTOWN TOWNSHIP sits an 800-acre wooded estate containing a mansion known locally as the Big House. This is the home of John Éleuthère du Pont, the wealthiest, craziest man in town.
Or at least he was, until he was transferred to jail in 1997, at the age of fifty-eight, for killing an Olympic wrestler at the bottom of his driveway. ‘We just thought that the odd things he was doing he was doing for attention,’ I was told by Kurt Angle, a former amateur wrestler who has since turned pro. Angle once trained with du Pont on his estate, as part of the Foxcatcher team that du Pont had established in the 1980s. ‘He just wanted people to take notice of him and say, “Wow, that du Pont – he can do anything he wants.” I don’t think anyone ever thought he was going to end up killing somebody.’
The du Ponts long ago lost control of their chemical empire, but the riches remain in the family, and John du Pont’s personal fortune has been estimated at $125 million. Like many men too wealthy to work, du Pont has spent many lonely years indulging his passions – shooting, swimming and wrestling – throwing money at things that please him, building up the leading amateur wrestling club in America, building up a private arsenal of handguns and assault rifles.
Examples of du Pont’s eccentricity have had them talking in the town for years. He thought there were Nazis in his trees. He told police that he shot the geese in his ponds because they were casting bad spells. A former builder on the estate told of how du Pont believed his mansion was fitted with an oil-spraying device that made things disappear. No one was sure why he shot the wrestler Dave Schultz in January 1996, but at the wrongful-death trial the following year his lawyers spoke of insanity and a ‘chemical imbalance’.
In November 1999, David Schultz’s widow Nancy settled her claim against du Pont for a sum believed to be $35 million, the largest award resulting from a wrongful-death suit ever paid directly by one person, and $1.5 million greater than the amount awarded against O. J. Simpson.
During
his trial for third-degree murder, at which he was found guilty and sentenced to a minimum of thirteen years in jail, the jury heard so much testimony that it took a week for them to agree a verdict. They heard of Dave Schultz’s gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, what a great father he was, and how he was a true ambassador for his sport. Schultz had a well manicured beard, and took much pride in his appearance. During the trial, every detail of his wrestling career was examined, including his choice of Lycra leotards, which were described as red – and mauve.
* To be fair to Wembley, the Wembley History Society had arranged a small Perkin exhibition at the Barham Park Public Library, and the Sudbury Methodist Church did put up a bronze sign inscribed ‘This plaque was placed … to mark the centenary of the discovery of the first aniline dye mauve by Sir William Perkin, founder of the original place of worship on this site 1856–1956.’
† The 1999 Perkin Medal was awarded to the Kentucky-born Dr Albert Carr for his work on the discovery of terfenadine (known primarily to hayfever sufferers as Seldane, Teldane or Triludan), the world’s first non-sedating anti-histamine, a flagship product for Hoechst Marion Roussel. Dr Carr also developed the anti-psychotic compound M100907, targeting the treatment of schizophrenia, and is named as the inventor on sixty-seven US patents. (The Perkin Medals mentioned here refer primarily to the US not the British awards.)
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FINGERPRINTS
Mauve Page 18
