1. William
Young 1 was born on 8 Aug
1840 in , Galashiels, Selkirk, Scotland. He died on 1 Mar 1907 in Priorsford,
Peebles, Scotland. He was buried on 5 Mar 1907 in St Andrew's Cemetery,Peebles
plot 338.
William married (1) Catherine
Allison 2 on 26 Dec 1864
in Eglinton St.,Tradeston,Glasgow,Scotland. Catherine was born in 1830/1838 in
Cupar (Fife) Scotland. She died on 6 Jul 1896 in 15 Marchmont St,Edinburgh.
William married4 (2) Agnes Stewart 3 . Agnes
was born on 13 Sep 1846 in Peebles (Peeblesshire) Scotland. She died on 28 May
1923.
Appendix A - Notes
1.
William Young
As Michael Cotteril states in the
Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography: "William was a second
generation
gasworks engineer with a
technological and entrepreneurial flair which gave him a pre-eminence in the
industry and a widespread practice as
a consultant engineer. A brilliant industrial chemist whose work was
his hobby, William had no time for
frivolities or outside interests. His retiring nature shunned the publicity
that
would have dispelled his obscurity.
Despite this disposition, technical editor Walter King found him a 'very
human, warm hearted, true friend, and
transparently honest of purpose.' Enthusiasm, a piercing intellect and
remarkably retentive memory kept
William at the forefront of developments. One of the greatest authorities
on destructive distillation of coal
and shale, he also specialised in by-product recovery and fractional
distillation and gasification of
oils. From 1893 until his death he was a close adviser to the Government Alkali
Inspector, R F Carpenter."
"The investment pattern in the
Scottish gas industry left little scope for talented engineers to profit from
their
skills by direct ownership. Like
waterworks, heavy investment in immovable distribution pipes made
monopoly supply the most
cost-effective and inhibited rivalry or forced competitors into price-fixing
agreements. Monopoly was normal, but
was only tolerated uneasily by consumers, from companies owned
largely by numerous resident
consumer-investors, or municipal authorities. William had other ideas. Bright
gas engineers profited mainly as
consultants, employed to plan and perhaps supervise construction or
alteration of gasworks elsewhere in
Britain or abroad. Some also patented equipment, manufactured by
ironworks for sale to the industry.
William gained from both fields, and went further by promoting a company
to supply under licence the oil-gas
process he invented."
As Cotteril points out: "In
youth William assisted his father's extensive practice of analysing the gas
potential
of coals. and paraffin oil in shales,
for industrialists. He may also have helped in experimental projects and
with planning the improved
water-supply for Dalkeith. Science was an exciting novelty in the household.
John
was one of the first Scots to make
artificial carbons for electricity, and gave public lectures on electricity,
chemistry and optics. William certainly
assisted with winter evening-classes in science which his father ran at
home for young Dalkethians."
Scientific Hall, Dalkeith
"William was an idealist and
hater of waste. Brought up under Puritan influences, and suffering moderately
weak health throughout his life, he
later rejected religious dogma yet was considered extremely high
principled and a friend to many in
need."
"During the mid 1850s, William
gained the patronage of Peter Brash a soap, candle and oil manufacturer with
Messrs Wm Taylor & Co of Leith.
Brash had an eye for chemical technology, lent him science books, and
encouraged William to attend public
lectures in Edinburgh given by Dr Lyon Playfair and other scientists."
"He then became an apprentice
gasfitter or 'plumber', under Lasswade gas manager Alexander Bell (1836-
1910). Bell had trained the same way
at Dalkeith under William's father before building Lasswade gasworks
to John's designs. Bell's son,
Alexander Jnr, later assisted William's experiments. Apprentice William was an
innovator, often castigated by Bell
for disturbing the conservative workshop routine. As a journeyman fitter he
quickly introduced a new system of
rolling lead for pipes, which trebled productivity. In 1863 Bell left to
manage Gibraltar gasworks, and
William at 21 became manager at Lasswade, with a tied-house and annual
salary of £75."
"Without a market for the gas,
some was burned as fuel to heat the horizontal retorts but most was wasted.
This inspired William's attempts to
minimise gas production and maximise oil, and led to the study of retort
design which remained central
throughout his life. Improvements came with deep 'charges' of shale reducing
air-spaces, and false-bottomed
retorts to prevent the furnace gasifying oil droplets. Real success only came
with vertical retorts and the
replacement of steam-injection by 'exhauster' fans blowing incondensible gas
down the retort to flush all
oil-vapour out through its base."
"About 1866 William left
Lasswade gasworks, to become Brash's manager at Messrs Taylor's oilworks in
Musselburgh, and Oakbank, Straiton.
Oil companies proliferated after the expiry of 'Paraffin' Young's
exclusive patent (1850-1864) and
stiff competition was increased by the scarcity of good quality oil shales
which rapidly rose in price.
Moreover, imports of North American crude oil, exploited since 1859, pushed
British oil price down heavily in
1866. The industry still used horizontal retorts which baked and discoloured
the oil, making it unattractive to
customers. Retorts were small and furnaces large, wasting fuel, causing
rapid deterioration of retorts, and
preventing the recovery of ammonium by-products which were increasingly
profitable at gasworks."
"Brash financed further
development in return for half of the profits, and became joint patentee with
William in
1866. William soon sold his share of
the retort patent for ?3,000, but Brash later made more when it was
quite widely adopted. William's new
retort of 1868 achieved the ideal uniform low red heat which 'Paraffin'
Young had advocated 20 years earlier
but had been unable to maintain. Some, with an expensive double-
casing, were erected at Oakbank in
1871. George Beilby, works chemist there from 1869, recalled fierce
controversy between proponents of
horizontal and vertical retorts. In 1872 William patented a better, single-
casing design using 'spent shale' at
the bottom as fuel to heat the top. By burning residual carbon this
curtailed the public nuisance of
smouldering shale-bings. Retort labourers found it too complex and William
lost his rewards to a similar but
simplified version by N. M. Henderson in 1873, which swept the industry."
"At Oakbank, Beilby was obliged
to operate both types and from 1878 began improving William's design. A
gifted pupil of 'Paraffin' Young's
chief chemist, John Galletly, he was well equipped for the task, and later
became wealthy through his Cassel
chemical company."
"William joined Clippens Oil
Company of Paisley in 1874 and ran their experimental plant at Straiton, using
low temperatures to recover ammonia.
Later, with Alex Bell Snr, who became its chief engineer, he designed
a large new oilworks for them at New
Pentland. In 1877 he patented a process to manufacture petrol, then
called gazolene, but in the absence
of petrol-engines its main use was to make an illuminating gas called
carburetted air, using a small
apparatus suitable for private houses."
Cotteril continues: "Virtually
all coal-gas in Scotland until the 1880s was used for illumination from open-
flame burners. Its 'candle power'
required a carefully balanced mixture of heat-generating and of soot-
generating hydrocarbons. Fine carbon
soot became incandescent momentarily before burning away. The
development of Welsbach gas-mantles
using incandescent minerals permitted the soot chemicals to he
phased out, and great improvements
made in calorific value for cooking and heating only after 1885.
William's first marketable gasworks
equipment, for improved 'candle power', was the 'Analyzer' developed in
1874-5 with Henry Aitken of Falkirk,
a coal-mine owner and experimentalist at Almond Ironworks. Used at
Hamilton and Dalmarnock. it released
illuminants by rewarming tar, but was uneconomical. William's water-
washer, tried at Lanark in 1880,
enabled small gasworks to produce ammoniacal liquor for the boom market
in sulphate fertilisers, and was very
widely used."
"ln 1874 a full scale experiment
to produce coal gas in four large vertical retorts was made at Musselburgh
gasworks, managed by family friend
Andrew Scott. Non-caking Scottish coal suited vertical retorts with great
potential advantages, particularly
reduced heat loss and deterioration, and automatic gravity feed instead of
slow and skilful manual emptying and
recharging. Failure resulted from water-gas dilution, and inadequate
heat without C. W. Siemens'
revolutionary producer-gas furnaces and heat- regenerators. At Straiton, with
Alex Bell Jnr, William developed a
radically improved two-phase version of his shale-oil retort with steam
injection to recover ammonia. Beilby
also had devised improvements and in 1881 they collaborated to make
the famous Pentland Retort, with
producer and regenerators. This doubled ammonia recovery, improved
paraffin yield, resuscitated the
industry, and made William wealthy. He retired to Priorsford House, Peebles,
as a consultant engineer."
"For John Fyfe of James Young's
Paraffin Co he sought methods of making permanent oil-gas from low
value heavy-oils. Helped again by
Alex Bell Jnr, then gas manager at Peebles, his very successful 'Peebles
Process' of high-candle power
enrichment for coal-gas found an eager market since best cannel coal used
for enrichment had become very scarce
and expensive in 1892. To market it, William formed the Oil Gas
Enrichment Co in 1893 [with George
Beilby and sixteen other oil and gas engineers]. The process was used
at 30 gasworks by 1896, including the
main Scottish towns, but William's work on an improved version in
1893 permanently damaged his
health."
"Many gasworks had adopted
horizontal 'regenerative' retorts with higher temperatures causing unwanted
naphthalene deposits. Samuel and
Thomas Glover, who had used the Peebles Process at St Helens
gasworks, visited William for advice
about this and with him visited several oil works. They were so
impressed with vertical retort
efficiency that they persuaded him to help them design vertical gas retorts.
The
first Glover-Young retort of 1905
gave high caloric gas, coke and by-products, and became a market leader."
"Though the death of Mr. William
Young, of Peebles, yesterday afternoon was not unexpected, the feeling of
regret to which the removal from our
midst of so distinguished a man gives rise is just as strong as if it had
come suddenly upon us. I have known
Mr. Young for twenty years -latterly much more intimately than at the
first. Like everyone else, I was
never in his company but I learned something from him. He was a man for
whom the frivolities of life had no
attraction. Yet he was one of the happiest of men whenever he found
anyone willing to discuss with him
some of the problems he had always seething in his mind. It was
interesting to hear him relate how he
advanced from point to point in the consideration of a particular subject.
He was ignorant of finality. When he
had reached a certain stage, that was to him firm and sure ground; next
time you saw him he was farther on.
and saw the thing from a different standpoint. yet maintaining the
continuity of his inquiry. The
subjects that were next his heart were also on the tip of his tongue. He could
speak without cessation upon them,
but let him be asked to (say) propose a vote of thanks, and he could not
command the language to do it.
Probably this quality of his character was accentuated by the state of his
health. which shut him out from all
sociality, and drove him to his study and his laboratory. For a man who
was nearly all his life far from
being robust, the amount of work which he accomplished was amazing."
"This country -Scotland in
particular- is much the richer in that she produced such a son as William
Young.
The mind is led to reflect upon what
has been Mr. Young's reward for all his toil on behalf of his countrymen.
A competency he secured, which is
matter for gratification. But honours did not come his way. When we
consider that some have risen into
celebrity, even earned titles and been admitted into the highest society,
whose qualifications have been no
more than a versatile imagination, or a capacity for selling groceries, and
that here is one who, grappling with
the secrets of Nature, has brought millions of pounds sterling into the
pockets of the people, yet has been allowed
to die without a single title or letter of distinction to his name,
and in such obscurity that the
leading newspaper in Scotland to-day bestows no more than twenty five lines
of print to his memory, we are forced
to the conclusion that the system of awarding honours in this world
stands very much in need of amending.
He received honour, universally, among his scientific brethren; but
the world at large, which benefited
by his labours, knew him not. Surely, now that he has passed away, his
name will not be allowed to be
forgotten..."
Sources
1. World
Connect Project pages of Roger Kelly,
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=kosmoid.
2. World
Connect Project pages of Roger Kelly.
3. World
Connect Project pages of Roger Kelly.
4. World
Connect Project pages of Roger Kelly.
