FAST COLOURS

Otago Witness, Issue 3942, 1 October 1929, Page 72

FAST COLOURS

The housewife of to-day, confronted with a bewildering choice of materials for her curtains and covers all of which are relatively proof against fading, has probably forgotten that only 30 years Lack things in this respect were very different, and it was the usual custom when the sun shone to draw the blinds so as to protect the delicate fabrics within the room (writes Dr E. F. Armstrong. F.R.S., F.1.C., technical director of British Dyestuffs Corporation). The progress in this respect is very largely due to British enterprise and to British scientific research and is associated with one name in particular, that of James Morton of Carlisle. The story of the development of fast colours as applied to woven and printed, fabrics is a fascinating one, and forms an epic of industry worthy mrhaps of being ranked with the stories of that great series of inventions in the eighteenth century which, beginning with James Watt’s invention of the steam engine, was followed by Richard Arkwright’s development of the spinning machine from which we date the establishment of the cotton manufacture. Another Lancashire man, Robert Peel, perfected the process of roller printing on calico and founded the cotton printing industry ; his grandson became Prime Minister of England. Perhaps to-day the stories of these three inventions are not as well known as they should be, although much of the prosperity of England has been built up on them. The art and practice of dyeing goes back to antiquity. At first the colours used were of natural origin, mainlv vegetable or mineral, though a few, such as ccehiner-1 or the Tyrian purple of the Romans, which is obtained from a mollusc, were derived from animals. The discovery of the so-called aniline dyes made from coal-tar is an oft-told store. Originally founded in this country by Perkin, the industry passed t<> Germany, where it fell on fruitful soil and became almost a monopoly of the Germans and the Swiss until the Great War brought about its revival in other countries, including Great Britain.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, whilst the firm had its special plant and processes of application, it had grown to be almost entirely dependent on Germany for the supply of its special dyes, as Germany had a monopoly of the manufacture of these fast vat dyes. No one in the firm knew anything of the chemistry of the dyes—they had been fully ’ occupied in their application. To a less determined individual the continuance of the guarantee would have seemed impossible, but Morton was made of sterner stuff. Jf he could get the blues and yellows it would still ne possible to carry on. An appeal was made to the then existing dye-making concerns in England to undertake this task, but tn vain; the difficulties appeared too great and they were fully occupied in other directions. It all began in a shop window. Morton, who is by nature an artist, had taken much pains in the design m.l colouring of some tapestries. Passing down Regent street, he viewed these in the window of a well-known shop, ami found they had changed so radically that the balance of his schemes had been completely upset, though inquiry showed they had only keen in the window for about a week. Much concerned at the revelation, Morton’s first step was tn ascertain whether other people's fabrics behaved in the same way as those of nis firm, and he stayed in London long enough to collect a very large assortment of patterns typical of what was then coming into the London market. On his return north, the young tomato plants were hastily removed from the greenhouse—what the gardiner said is not on record —and the patterns, duly mounted on cards with their surfaces half covered and half exposed, were submitted to the effect of daylight in a warm, humid atmosphere. As Morton Kays, the result was most staggering. Only here and there a colour stood out as fast; this gave a hint as to the future. So a constructive campaign was instituted, the scheme being to arrive at a range of colours, however small, with which fabrics could be dyed and guaranteed ’\v the maker against fading from sunlight or ordinary washing. Many hundreds of colours were dyed in every conceivable way that would tend to secure fastness, and already by the summer of 1904 a sufficient number of reliable colours had been obtained to make it possible to put tapestries on the market, for the first time in t\e history of textiles, with a guarantee of fastness. The next step was the education of the trade buyer and of the general public in regard to the value of the fast dyes, so that they would be prepared to pav the very considerable extra price. The now well-known trade mark “ Sundour ” was introduced, and an intensive educative campaign amongst the customers undertaken. At first only the dying of the special colours on yarns was tackled, but at a later stage the most important problem of dyeing in the piece was undertaken and a process worked out for producing at Carlisle the first whole or plain vatdved goods ever made and guaranteeing them—a much bolder venture, and one which caused astonishment to Cue Lancasliire manufacturers. Tt is to Morton more than any other man that we owe the fact that to-day the colours of our fabrics pre as sound and as permanent as the fibres of which thev are made..

Morton went home to think things over, with the result that he determined to make the dyes—that blue and yellow —himself, even if they cost him their weight in gold. Within three months an ounce or so of each had been produced in the lal>oratory by methods which can only lie followed by the trained chemist. But this was a start, and the next thing was to find the plant in which to make the many thousands of pounds required. There was a war on, and those who tried to get plant of any kind during the war without a very high certificate of priority will realise the difficulties which were encountered. One by one these were surmounted, though new troubles always arose; by the end of March, 1915, a batch of 20 pounds was produced, and a real beginning made at the works in Carlisle from plant which was practically all local. To-day of the same colours about 10 tons a week are made. \\ itli the two vat-colours under way and a dye-making factory coming into being, attention was devoted to the possibility of making the fastest ami most sought after of 'the acid wool colwhich was looked upon as the key colour in blues for wool. Indeed, at the end of 1916 it was estimated by a director of the Bradford Dyers’ Association that th.e annual value of the goods dyed with this co’our was well in excess of £1,009.000. Progress at Carlisle was such that the space available became inadequate, and development on a more ambitions scale seemed justified. Ultimately a site at Grangemouth was chosen and the firm of Scottish Dyers, Limited, constitute.’, where the manufacture of the fast dyes was undertaken with new energy. About this time the dye trade was confronted with certain political issues which had a well-nigh devastating effect on its future. Government had given a promise to restrict the import of dyestuffs from abroad, so as to give the infant industry a start in this country, ami had relied on an Act of 1870 for the necessary powers. This intention was upset in August 1919, by what is called the *’ Sankey Judgment,’’ with the result that for a time the users were fre to import from Germany all they wanted, and it is estimated that something like £7,000,009 worth came into Britain during the next IS months until a special Act of Parliament was passed for the benefit of the dye industry. On th? heels of this almost knock-out blow came the severe slump in trade of 1921, and t ! 'e new venture was faced with two years of adversity.

Morton used this period largely for the purpose of chemical research. Convinced that he was on right lines in seeking to manufacture the very fastest colours, he was no longer content to match the pre-war German colours, but sought to discover and invent dyes of his own. He had had the vision to acquire th.e British rights of a novel American process for making a substance called phthalic anhydride as the starting material for their dyestuff syntheses, thus replacing anthracene, a much scarcer and more costly constituent of coal-tar. which is both difficult to purify in itself and is costly to transform into a dye. Not only were the known dyes made more cheaply, of greater purity and faster, but quite new products came along also. These included the fastest blue ever made, and on September 11, 1929, a green of -pure quality, the lack of which had always been one of the obvious gaps of the vat palette. This green, proudly christened Caledon Jade green, created more than a sensation, both because of : ts purity of shade and because it was found to b? the fastest all-round colour of the whole vat series. Twenty-two patents for it exist over the world. It is the most outstanding discovery in the dye trade for a quarter cf a century since the original introduction of the first vat dves.