LAWES CHEMICAL COMPANY LTD

TR LAW

1843 - 1968

Lawes Chemical Co Ltd was founded by John Bennet Lawes at Deptford Creek, London for the manufacture of superphosphate, later moving to Barking Creek. In 1872 it was incorporated as Lawes Chemical Manure Co Ltd, and went into liquidation in 1969. J.B. Lawes (1814-1900) succeeded to the Rothamsted estate, Hertfordshire in 1822, taking possession in 1834, and began to experiment in agricultural chemistry, testing the action of fertiliser on various crops in field and plot tests through the 1830s and early 1840s. From his experiments he discovered that bone meal treated with sulphuric acid gave better results than untreated bone meal, and it was realised that this was the effect of the phosphoric acid content of the treated meal, the phosphoric acid in mineral phosphates being converted by means of sulphuric acid into a form available to plants. Lawes took out a patent for this means of production of superphosphate, and is responsible for founding the mineral superphosphate industry. As well as founding the Lawes Chemical Co for the production of superphosphate, in 1843 Lawes founded the Rothamsted Experimental Station, continuing to make a large contribution to agricultural research.

Records of Lawes Chemical Company Ltd.

199 Documents

fonds

Rothamsted, Agricultural chemistry, Fertiliser

TR LAW/AC1/1 Customer Ledger TR LAW/AD1/1 Agenda TR LAW/AD2/1-2 General Administrative and Commercial Records TR LAW/AD4/1-2 Premises Records TR LAW/AD7/1 Commercial Records TR LAW/DO1/1 Drawings TR LAW/ET1/1-3 Experiment and Trials Records TR LAW/ET2/1-8 Reference Records to Products TR LAW/ET3/1-2 General Technical Reference Records TR LAW/P1/A1-4 Guardbooks containing Lawes' advertising publications TR LAW/P1/B1-2 Guardbooks containing other firms' advertising publications TR LAW/P2/A1-41 Individual Advertising Publications for Lawes Products TR LAW/P4/1-10 House Journals TR LAW/P5/1-2 Press Releases TR LAW/P7/1-3 Records of Advertising Campaigns and Events TR LAW/P8/1-5 Printing Proofs and Artworks TR LAW/PH3/1-103 Photographic Prints TR LAW/SP1/1-33 File of miscellaneous material relating to the company's history