Edward Packard (businessman, born 1819)

Edward Packard, senior (1819–1899), was an English businessman who founded and developed a major artificial fertilizer industry near Ipswich, Suffolk in the mid-nineteenth century, and became a wealthy and prominent figure in the life of the Borough. His son, Sir Edward Packard, junior (28 September 1843 – 11 April 1932) developed Packard and James Fison (Thetford) Limited ('Fisons') into one of the largest fertiliser manufacturing businesses in the United Kingdom.

Edward Packard senior, born at Hasketon near Woodbridge, Suffolk in 1819, built up the E. Packard & Co. business in artificial fertilizers at Bramford near Ipswich, Suffolk, based upon Professor J.S. Henslow's recognition in 1843 that the so-called "Coprolites" at the basement bed of the Red Crag Formation of Suffolk were rich in phosphates.

Commencing experimental workings at Snape in 1843, and entering contracts for supply of the raw materials (freighted by barges and lighters), Packard's first factory in Ipswich was set up in an old flour-mill on the Orwell quay in 1847. This became a coprolite warehouse when he relocated to Bramford (by 1854), as rail freight became available and the sulphurous fumes from the works demanded more rural location. Such was his success that the elder Packard (nicknamed 'The Coprolite King' or, more informally, 'the Golden Muck-Man of Ipswich') served as Mayor of the Borough in 1868.

He contributed immensely to the town's Victorian prosperity, and in his capacity as Alderman and Chair of the Ipswich Museum Committee he advocated the recruitment of the geologist John Ellor Taylor as Curator in 1872. Taylor was the founder of the Norwich Science-Gossip Society and the founding example for the sister Society in Ipswich, in which the sons of the town's industry-owning families met regularly to improve their scientific knowledge and understanding of its industrial applications. As the Crag workings for coprolites produced many unusual fossils the Museum collections were also greatly enriched. In addition to Crag specimens, Packard notably obtained and presented a near-complete ichthyosaur skeleton from the Lias at Street, Somerset for the benefit of the New Museum opened in 1880, where it can still be seen.

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