Beckton Products Works
Following the invention of coal gas early in the 19th century, it was discovered than numerous organic and inorganic chemicals could be obtained when purifying the gas. Processes began to be developed to recover these, and a major branch of the British chemical industry – the coal tar and ammonia by-products industry – came into existence. By 1876 a nearby company, Burt, Boulton and Haywood of Silvertown, was distilling each year 12 million imperial gallons (55,000 m3) of coal tar to manufacture ingredients for disinfectants, insecticides and dyes. Sulphur from the gas works was the raw material for local manufacturers of sulphuric acid needed by other nearby companies producing products such as fertilizers. Subsequently the GLCC decided that it would carry out the processing of by-products itself, rather than sell them to independent chemical companies. A purpose-built chemical works, Beckton Products Works, was constructed in 1879. It was the largest tar and ammonia by-products works in the UK, possibly in the world. Besides millions of gallons of road tar, products included phenol, the cresols and xylenols, naphthalene, pyridine bases, creosote, benzene, toluene, xylene, solvent naphtha, ammonium sulphate and ammonia solution, sulphuric acid, picolines, quinoline, quinaldine, acenaphthene, anthracene and dicyclopentadiene. Since the Products works was dependent on by-products of gas manufacture it could not long survive the introduction of natural gas. The last train carrying chemical products, a load of pitch, left the works on 1 June 1970.
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