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Significant Scots
Charles MacIntosh |
MACINTOSH, CHARLES, F.R.S., an inventor of several
chemical manufactures, was born at Glasgow, December 29, 1766. He was the
son of Mr. George Macintosh, who introduced the manufacture of cudbear and
Turkey-red dyeing into Glasgow. His mother was Mary Moore, a daughter of the
Rev. Charles Moore, of Stirling, and a sister of Dr. John Moore, author of "Zeluco,".
Her nephew was Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, K.B., who fell in the
disastrous retreat at Corunna. Charles received the elements of his
education in his native city, and afterwards was sent to a school at Catterick Bridge, in Yorkshire. On his leaving the latter, he was placed in
the counting-house of Mr. Glassford, of Dugaldston, to acquire habits of
business. He studied chemistry under the celebrated Dr. Black, then settled
in Edinburgh, and turned his knowledge to practical account at an early
period, having embarked in the manufacture of sal-ammoniac before he had
attained the age of twenty. He subsequently introduced from Holland into
this country, the manufacture of acetate of lead and acetate of alumina,
employed in calico-printing. In 1797 he was associated with Mr. Charles
Tennant, then a bleacher at Darnley, near Glasgow, in working the patent for
the production of chloride of lime in the dry state and in solution, since
employed so extensively as a bleaching agent. In the same year he became a
partner in a firm of Hurlet for the manufacture of alum from alum schist;
and, in 1805, similar works, on a large scale, were established by the same
company at Campsie. On the death of his father, in 1807, Mr. Macintosh took
possession, with his family, of the house at Dunchattan, near Glasgow, where
he continued till the end of his life to prosecute his chemical researches.
In 1822 he obtained a patent for his celebrated invention of the waterproof
cloth distinguished by his name. With a view to the obtaining of ammonia to
be employed in the manufacrure of cudbear, Mr. Macintosh, in 1819, entered
into a contract with the proprietors of the Glasgow gas-works, to receive
the tar and other ammoniacal products of the distillation of coal in
gas-making. After separating the ammonia, in converting the tar into pitch,
the essential oil named naphtha is produced; and it occurred to the
inventive mind of Mr. Macintosh to turn this substance to account as a
solvent of caoutchoue or India rubber. He succeeded in producing a
waterproof varnish, the thickness and consistency of which he could vary,
according to the quantity of naphtha employed in the process. Having
obtained a patent for this process, he established a manufactory of
waterproof articles, which was first carried on in Glasgow, but was
eventually transferred to a partnership in Manchester, under the name of
Charles Macintosh & Co. In 1828 Mr. Macintosh joined a copartnery in working
the hot-blast of Mr. J.B. Neilson. He first established in Scotland the
manufacture of Prussian blue and prussiate of potash; invented the mode of
topical painting of calico, silks, &c., by the application of the caoutchoue
and naphtha varnish; and invented and patented a process for converting iron
into steel, by means of carburetted hydrogen gas. Mr. Macintosh closed a
career of great usefulness to science and the arts on the 25th of
July, 1843, in his seventy-seventh year.
Some Genealogy
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