Consultants, Managers, Testing Slaves: Changing Roles for Chemists in the British Alkali Industry, 1850–1920

Abstract

Consultants, Managers, Testing Slaves: Changing Roles for Chemists in the British Alkali Industry, 1850—1920 JAMES DONNELLY In 1896 Georg Lunge, professor of chemical technology at the Zurich Federal Polytechnic, made the following remarks about em­ ployment prospects in the chemical industry: “I have hitherto had only those in mind who aspire ... to become themselves managers or owners of factories. Of course, only a few can ever reach that goal, and the great majority must content themselves with obtaining intermediate positions, but if they have honestly worked during their college time, they may trust not to be left always in the condition of ‘testing slaves,’ but to be promoted to manage some part or other of the real manufacture.”1 Lunge, who had himself spent some years working in the English chemical industry in Tyneside, had witnessed the early stages of industrial recruitment of academically trained personnel. His comments reveal some of the mechanisms that were involved. This article is concerned with these mechanisms as they operated in the British alkali industry. It focuses on the organizational changes involved, the uses made of academic knowledge, and the related shifts in the structure of control and authority in the industry. It is based on the argument that the gap between academe and technical employment required a bridging mechanism that allowed academic knowledge to be functional in an industrial environment. That mechanism was supplied by routine analysis, undertaken by the “testing slaves” referred to by Lunge. In the past, industrial and business historians have tended to give little attention to issues of this kind, focusing instead on financial and Dr. Donnelly is with the Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Leeds. He is grateful for the comments of the Technology and Culture referees on earlier versions of the article. The work was supported by financial assistance from the History of Science Fund of the Royal Society and the School of Education at the University of Leeds. 'G. Lunge, “Remarks on the Teaching of Chemistry,” Society of Arts, International Congress on Technical Education (London, 1897), pp. 15-18.© 1994 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/94/3501-0003$01.00 100 Chemists in the British Alkali Industry, 1850—1920 101 business relations. More recently, scholars working within diverse frameworks have begun to alter this situation. Alfred Chandler has shown the influence of technology within companies’ organizational and commercial strategies. Leonard Reich, working on the electrical industry, has explored the relations of technical and academic knowl­ edge and their role in corporate strategies. David Noble has argued that industrial power had a key role in the formation of academic institutions and curricula. Charles McGuffie has developed the work of the “deskilling” school to show the articulation of industrial personnel structures and public policy.2 This article overlaps with the arguments of these scholars at several points. The article first focuses on the origins of the recruitment of chemists into the British alkali industry until about 1875. It then discusses the processes of functional specialization and organizational change that accompanied the recruitment of chemists during the last quarter of the 19th century, focusing on the firms of Brunner, Mond and Company and the United Alkali Company. The third section considers the growing stratification in recruitment that occurred during this period and the early 20th century. The final section relates these findings to more general work on the role of technical and scientific employees in industry. The Early Role of Chemists in the British Alkali Industry By the late 18th century, the utility of chemistry and natural philosophy was frequently expressed in dichotomized terms: as a “pure” science it was able to be “applied” and thus constitute a “theory” providing rules for technical “practice.”3 Chemical theory could play a more concrete role, however, by providing a framework through which quantitative and qualitative knowledge about the materials involved in processes could be constructed. The use of chemical methods as criteria within commodity exchange was also 2A. D. Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977); L. S. Reich, The Making ofAmerican Industrial Research: Science and Business at General...