Henry Deacon (industrialist)
| Henry Deacon | |
|---|---|
Henry Deacon
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| Born |
30 July 1822 London, England |
| Died | 23 July 1876 (aged 53) Widnes, Lancashire |
| Residence | England |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Chemist, engineer |
| Institutions |
Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company; Pilkington Brothers; Gaskell, Deacon and Co |
| Known for | Manufacture of alkali and chlorine |
Henry Deacon (30 July 1822 – 23 July 1876) was a chemist and industrialist who established a chemical factory in Widnes, Lancashire, England.
Henry Deacon's father was also named Henry Deacon and his mother was Esther Deacon, his father's cousin. The family were members of the Sandemanian church, one of whose members, Michael Faraday, was a friend of the Deacon family. Faraday played an important part in the development of Henry junior's life and development. His education was at a Quaker school in Tottenham. He was apprenticed at the age of 14 to the London engineering firm of Galloway & Sons. When this company failed, he joined the business of Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company in their factory at Patricroft, Manchester, on the banks of the Bridgewater Canal. In the 1840s he moved to Pilkington Brothers at St Helens and became manager of their glass-polishing department. While he was there he invented an apparatus for the grinding and smoothing of glass. In 1851 he left to join John Hutchinson, alkali manufacturer, in Widnes.
In 1853 Deacon, with Edmond Leyland, filed his first patent, which was for an improved manufacturing process for sulphuric acid. Later that year Deacon left Hutchinson and went into partnership with the younger of the Pilkington brothers, William, to establish their own alkali works in Widnes on land between the Sankey Canal and St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway. This partnership was dissolved in 1855. In a new partnership with his previous employer, Holbrook Gaskell who provided the capital, the firm of Gaskell, Deacon and Co was founded. At that time all factories manufacturing alkali were doing so by the Leblanc process. In 1838 Harrison Grey Dyar and John Henmming patented an ammonia-soda process of making alkali. Deacon experimented with this process but had no success and Gaskell persuaded him to abandon this project.
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