{"id":9754,"date":"2013-03-11T16:31:18","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T16:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=9754"},"modified":"2019-08-17T10:09:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-17T09:09:01","slug":"william-henry-perkin-the-site-of-the-factory-and-the-grave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=9754","title":{"rendered":"William Henry Perkin: The site of the factory and the grave."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"kcite-section\" kcite-section-id=\"9754\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Henry_Perkin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">William Henry Perkin<\/a>\u00a0is a local chemical hero of mine. The factory where he founded the British (nay, the World) fine organic chemicals industry is in\u00a0Greenford,\u00a0just up the road from where we live. The factory used to be close to the Black Horse pub (see below) on the banks of the grand union canal. It is now commemorated merely by a blue plaque placed on the wall of the modern joinery building occupying the location (circled in red on the photo).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.openstreetmap.org\/export\/embed.html?bbox=-0.34672915935516363%2C51.54588801737799%2C-0.34321010112762457%2C51.5478145543095&amp;layer=mapnik\" style=\"border: 1px solid black\"><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"https:\/\/www.openstreetmap.org\/#map=19\/51.54685\/-0.34497\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-9758\" alt=\"Perkin-Factory-plaque\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Perkin-Factory-plaque.jpg\" width=\"389\" height=\"290\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-9757\" alt=\"Perkin-Factory\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Perkin-Factory.jpg\" width=\"389\" height=\"246\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But when BBC TV contacted me to ask where his grave was, a little detective work was needed to track it down to the cemetery in Christchurch, Roxeth (near Harrow-on-the-Hill).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.openstreetmap.org\/export\/embed.html?bbox=-0.3463160991668702%2C51.5659833715832%2C-0.3406190872192383%2C51.56983466190127&amp;layer=mapnik\" style=\"border: 1px solid black\"><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"https:\/\/www.openstreetmap.org\/#map=18\/51.56791\/-0.34347\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9760\" alt=\"Perkin's_Gravestone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Perkins_Gravestone1.jpg\" width=\"230\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-9761\" alt=\"Wide-shot-of-grave\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Wide-shot-of-grave.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"322\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And if you ever need to track me down, my office window is the one with the translucent image of a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=5248\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> mauveine molecular orbital<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.openstreetmap.org\/export\/embed.html?bbox=-0.17841517925262454%2C51.496676150504115%2C-0.17556667327880862%2C51.49860477044416&amp;layer=mapnik\" style=\"border: 1px solid black\"><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"https:\/\/www.openstreetmap.org\/#map=19\/51.49764\/-0.17699\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9769\" style=\"width: 430px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9769\" class=\" wp-image-9769 \" onclick=\"jmolInitialize('..\/Jmol\/','JmolAppletSigned.jar');jmolSetAppletColor('white');jmolApplet([450,450],'load wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Mauveine_mo113.cub.xyz;isosurface color green blue wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Mauveine_mo113.cub.jvxl translucent;zoom 120;');\" alt=\"Click for  3D\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/mauveine.jpg\" width=\"420\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9769\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click for 3D<\/p><\/div>\n<!-- kcite active, but no citations found -->\n<\/div> <!-- kcite-section 9754 -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Henry Perkin\u00a0is a local chemical hero of mine. The factory where he founded the British (nay, the World) fine organic chemicals industry is in\u00a0Greenford,\u00a0just up the road from where we live. The factory used to be close to the Black Horse pub (see below) on the banks of the grand union canal. It is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":5,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[794,1022,309,1011,1012,2651,1023,1024,1021],"ppma_author":[2661],"class_list":["post-9754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-chemistry","tag-bbc","tag-black-horse-pub","tag-detective","tag-dye-industry","tag-greenford","tag-historical","tag-local-chemical-hero","tag-organic-chemicals-industry","tag-william-henry-perkin"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>William Henry Perkin: The site of the factory and the grave. - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=9754\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"William Henry Perkin: The site of the factory and the grave. - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"William Henry Perkin\u00a0is a local chemical hero of mine. The factory where he founded the British (nay, the World) fine organic chemicals industry is in\u00a0Greenford,\u00a0just up the road from where we live. The factory used to be close to the Black Horse pub (see below) on the banks of the grand union canal. 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