Originally published in December 1995. Updated, March 1998.
Mauveine: The First Industrial Organic Fine-Chemical
Whilst the origin of the modern industrial revolution is
often traced to the Ironbridge Gorge northwest of Birmingham in
the UK, less credit is given to one of the birthplaces of the
modern organic chemical industry. William Henry Perkin, who at the age of 18 had
accidentally produced the first
ever synthetic dye (aniline purple, better known as mauveine),
set up a factory on the banks of the Grand Union Canal in 1857
to produce it.
This small dyeworks was located on a 6-acre site just
south of the Black Horse public House, in Greenford, West London. This
pub survives to this day, and remains a "local" for the pharmaceutical
giant, Glaxo Wellcome, which has its world headquarters nearby.
At the Royal Exhibition of 1862, Queen Victoria made an appearance
in a silk gown dyed with mauveine. In the Imperial College chemistry archives,
there is a sample of silk (approx 5 x 10 cm in size)
dyed with a batch of the original dye
synthesised in the 1850s, and a "penny lilac" postage stamp originally thought to
have been dyed with the
same compound. Curiously, the "correct" structure for the compound was only
finally put to rest as late as 1994 (appropriately enough, in
a journal named after Perkin himself). This turns out to be a mixture of the compound
shown and one other containing one more methyl group (click on the button on the right
to see location of the extra methyl group