Sir John Tomlinson Brunner was a British industrialist, and the grandfather of HRH The Duchess of Kent. Her Royal Highness Princess Edward, Duchess of Kent (Katharine Lucy Mary Windsor, formerly Worsley), styled HRH The Duchess of Kent, is a member of the British Royal Family the wife of HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, a grandson of King George V and cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. The...
He co-founded Brunner Mond & Company in 1873, in partnership with Ludwig Mond. They built Winnington Works at Northwich, Cheshire, and produced their first soda ash in 1874 by the Solvay process. The company grew and eventually merged with three other British chemical companies to form Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). 1873 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calaber). ... Dr Ludwig Mond (born March 7, 1839, Kassel; died December 11, 1909, London) was an important German-born British chemist and industrialist. ... Sodium carbonate or soda ash, Na2CO3, is a sodium salt of carbonic acid. ... Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) is a British chemical company, based in London. ...
In 1873 he entered into partnership with Sir JohnTomlinsonBrunner (b.
1842 -),whom he had met when he was at Widnes, and thus founded the great chemical manufacturing firm of Brunner, Mond and Co. They began to make alkali by the ammonia-soda process, under licence from the Belgian chemist, Ernest Solvay, but at first the venture threatened to prove a failure.
Gradually, however, the technical difficulties were overcome and success assured, largely as a result of improved methods worked out by Mond for the recovery of the ammonia.