Loftus Alum Works

Peter Appleton from the Skelton History Group has kindly contributed another wonderful article on the local Alum industry.

Period of operation:  c.1654 to 1866 (with some production pauses along the way)

Owners: The Lord of the manor of Loftus at the time

• c.1654-1676 : Zachary Steward
• 1672-1732 : Zachary Steward More
• 1732-1764 : Zachary Harnage More
• 1764-1781 : Sir Lawrence Dundas
• 1781-1820 : Sir Thomas Dundas
• 1820-1844 : Sir Robert Lawrence Dundas, KCB
• 1844-1866 : The Honourable Thomas Dundas

N.B. There were possibly additional members of the Steward and More families involved. The genealogical research has been particularly challenging on this family line.

The limited survival of primary source material from the 17^th and early 18^th centuries hinders our ability to “put flesh on the bones” of the first 100 years of operation. Some alum works’ owners leased them to a group of proprietors drawn from merchants, industrialists, shipowners, master mariners and bankers. These would then pay an annual rent to the landowner. The proprietors provided the working capital and appointed a manager. The manager recruited his workforce.

Other owners kept the operation “in-house”. Based on the contents of the Will of Zachary Steward More, probated in 1732, he ran an “in-house” operation. He made a specific request that: “…my Executors and Son will imploy Robert Suggett as a Clerk at my Allom Works and that Anthony Clark may be assisting in making up the halfe years abstracts and that my Son or Trustees give to Every Workman that is Working for me att my death may have halfe a Crown apiece and Boys twelve pence Each.”

As part of his duties as Clerk at the works, Suggett produced a summary of the production and sales of alum covering the period Lady day 1727 to Lady day 1747. During those years, the works made 7,649 tons of alum, which sold for £106,200. The cost of making it and getting it to market was £76,936. The total profit was, therefore, £29,264 at an average annual profit of £1,453. Converting that into the value of money in 2018 gives £200,000 per annum at a minimum.

In February 1757, following severe storms the previous autumn, the alum house at Loftus was destroyed by a massive landslide. It is possible that the cost of rebuilding the alum house and putting the works back into operation proved too much for More’s purse. After all, this was the man of whom John Hall Stevenson wrote:

“A living Monument,
Of the Friendship and Generosity of the Great;
After an Intimacy of thirty Years,
With most of the great Personages of these Kingdoms,
Who did him the Honour to assist him,
In the laborious Work,
Of getting to the far End of a great Fortune,
These his Noble Friends
From Gratitude for the many happy Days and Nights
Enjoy’d by his Means,
Exalted him, through their Influence,
In the forty-seventh year of his Age,
To an Ensigncy;
Which he actually enjoys at present
In GIBRALTAR”

(Source: Crazy Tales by John Hall Stevenson, published 1762)

Whatever his reasons, in 1764 Zachary More sold the manor of Loftus to Sir Lawrence Dundas, known to the political world of that time as the Nabob of the North. As well as Loftus, Sir Lawrence also held the manors of Marske-by-sea, Upleatham and Aske near Richmond.

The Dundas family kept the alum works operation “in-house”. A Land Agent was appointed to run the commercial aspects of each manor: collecting rent from the tenants twice a year, arranging repairs to properties that needed it, building new properties, etc. At Loftus, the Agent’s work included looking after the commercial aspects of running the alum works. Under the Dundas’ ownership, the Agents at Loftus included: Thomas Napper (c.1790 to c.1800), John C Waller (1800 to 1803), William Usher (1803 to c.1816), Alexander Tod (pre-1823 to 1834) and Alexander McLean (1834 to 1873).

The key employee at an alum works was the alum-maker. He was the one who understood the manufacturing process and how to control it. From the late 1780s or early 1790s, the alum-maker at Loftus was William Hunton (1761-1809). It is possible that, at age 25 years, he had studied the chemistry of alum production under Dr. Joseph Black at Edinburgh University. Upon his death, William was succeeded as alum-maker by his son, also William (1789-1863). Young William was nineteen years old when he took over the role. He would eventually become the Agent for the alum works, i.e. the Commercial Manager. His son, Robert March Hunton, assisted his father in the running of the alum business and was, for a time, the alum-maker. During the last few years of operation, the role of alum-maker was fulfilled by Robert Metcalf. He had previously held the position of Liquorman in the alum house.

At the height of its operation, from about 1790 to 1820, the works was configured to produce over 1000 tons of alum per year. Even though it rarely exceeded 600 tons, it was still the biggest single producer in the UK until Peter Spence invented his industrial process for making alum in 1845.

The above account is based on research as it stood on 1^st April 2020, just after the “lockdown” restrictions to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic closed all archive locations.

Main Sources:

“A Forgotten Industry” by Peter Appleton, published by Boroughgate Books in 2018

Original manuscript records from the Dundas Collection held at North Yorkshire County Record Office, Northallerton under catalogue reference ZNK