James Muspratt

James Muspratt
James Muspratt
Born	12 August 1793 Dublin, Ireland
Died	4 May 1886 (1886-05-05) (aged 92) Lancashire, England
Residence	Dublin, Merseyside
Nationality	United Kingdom
Fields	Chemist, industrialist
Notes
The first to use the Leblanc process commercially

James Muspratt (12 August 1793 – 4 May 1886) was a British chemical manufacturer who was the first to make alkali by the Leblanc process on a large scale in the United Kingdom.

James Muspratt was born in Dublin of English parents, the youngest of three children. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a wholesale druggist, but his father died in 1810 and his mother soon afterwards. He left Dublin and in 1812 he went to Spain to take part in the Peninsular War. He followed the British army on foot into the interior, was laid up with fever at Madrid, and, narrowly escaping capture by the French, succeeded in making his way to Lisbon where he joined the navy. After taking part in the blockade of Brest he deserted because of the harshness of the discipline.

Returning to Dublin in about 1814, he came into an inheritance and in 1818 established a chemical works in partnership with Thomas Abbott. Here he began to manufacture chemical products such as hydrochloric and acetic acids and turpentine, adding prussiate of potash a few years later.

Sodium carbonate, also known as soda ash, is an effective industrial alkali. The manufacture of sodium carbonate from common salt was first developed in France in the 1790s and known as the Leblanc process. Muspratt was attracted towards manufacturing it, but could not raise the capital for the relatively expensive Leblanc plant and also considered that Dublin was not a suitable location for this. He perceived Merseyside as better because of the neighbouring coal fields, the proximity to the salt district of Cheshire, and the proximity to glassmaking industry. The glassmakers were the main prospective customer base for the sodium carbonate alkali.