THETFORD, NORFOLK
The firm of Fisons grew up in Thetford in the mid-nineteenth century with James Fison of the White House, Barningham,
being the entrepreneurial figure at its head. As his milling business expanded
he moved to Thetford in 1808 where he was joined by
his two sons, James and Cornell, producing feeding stuffs, linseed and rape
cake as well as malting, buying and selling corn, coal, wool as well as brickmaking. (Norsk Hydro file, Museum of East Anglian Life,Stowmarket)
They
opened works in Stowmarket in the early-1830s and, by
the 1840s, they were advertising in the local trade directories as selling feeding stuffs, linseed and rape cake, buying and
selling corn, coal and wool, malting, timber sawyers, bone and cake crushing,
and brickmaking. James Fison
was experimenting with bone dust as early as 1843 as evidenced by the following
extracts from his memo book: -
"BONES: January 28th 1843
To Grind bones into Drill
and Dust. I do not leave all the dust in the make but nearly so. My price here
for drill and dust averaged 15/6d and 17/6d for all dust. Average price paid
this year for bones at 75/- or 76/- per ton. Profit I calculate at 2/- to 2/6
per quarter"
(‘The
Early Fertiliser Years 1843 – 1929', Fison’s memo
book, Fison’s Ltd)
Following
the development of artificial manures in the early-1840s and the profits to be
made in the lucrative manure market, James invested in the plant and machinery
needed to expand into this branch of agricultural supplies. He used his mill to
grind imported bones and guano, in great demand at that time by agriculturalists, By 1845 He had
expanded his factory at Steam Mills, Bridge Street, Thetford
to capitalise on the growing demand from Suffolk
farmers. (White’s Norfolk Directory,1845; Norsk Hydro file, Museum of East Anglian
Life, Stowmarket; Norfolk Industrial Archaeology
Society Journal 1976)
BONES: April 10th 1847
Mixture with
vitriol.
Information obtained from the Newcastle
Agricultural Meeting.
Make a conical heap of earth or ashes with a mouth
at the top. For two acres, put 8 bushels of half inch bones to 160 lbs
sulphuric acid. Mix the acid with 10 gallons hot water. Place alternate layers
in the cone of earth, bone and acid. Stir and cover over for a day or two and
turn twice or thrice."
(‘The
Early Fertiliser Years 1843 – 1929', Fison’s memo
book, Fison’s Ltd)
By
1847 Joseph Fison had expanded into Suffolk
and opened a fertiliser works in Ipswich to
capitalise on the newly discovered coprolite beds. James made many analyses of
Peruvian guano, gypsum, coprolite and manures. In 1851 he had 80 tons of
Felixstowe coprolites shipped into Thetford via King’s Lynn. Following Joseph’s success in Suffolk he realised the potential market from landowners
and farmers in Norfolk.
In 1853 he leased a large plot of land at Two Mile Bottom, about two miles from
Thetford. (TF. 853867) from W.D.
Mackenzie of Fawley
Court, Buckinghamshire. It was between the Thetford to Mundford Road and the Little
Ouse alongside the Thetford to Ely railway line. It
had its own acid plant to manufacture what was then called oil of vitriol or
sulphuric acid which was used to dissolve the phosphatic
materials to produce and market turnip and corn manures as well as superphosphate of lime. The company office was on Bridge Street.
(Kelly's Post Office Directory,Norfolk,
1879,1883) Between 1856-75 the company was the major
supplier of vitriol to Cambridge Manure Co. works at Cambridge and Duxford.
(Cams.RO R60 Cambridge
Manure Co.Minute Books)
In the same year, 1853, he opened 'The Blood and Manure Company' with
its own vitriol and manure works. When it was completed it was the second such
extensive chemical manure works in the country after Packards
in Bramford. With
the river Ouse being navigable as far as King's Lynn
the major raw materials, mineral phosphates, coprolites and sulphur, were
easily brought in by barge. The proximity of the railway was also an advantage
enabling easy access throughout Cambs., Norfolk and Suffolk.
However, as coprolites or phosphatic nodules were
found on land in Cambridgeshire belonging to other landowning and farming
members of the Fison family it seems likely there was
some trade in it. They began exploiting it in the late-1850s and, although none
of the company records have emerged, in all likelihood they would have had it
sent by truck or barge. This traffic in raw materials from Ipswich,
Cambridgeshire and elsewhere would have stimulated other businesses and
provided employment for many and proved a valuable contribution to the local
economy.
Coke
was brought in by barge and water for the steam was obtained from the river
Little Ouse. The company records show that they purchased fossil bones from the
Cromer bone bed at West Runton
as well as whale bones. Whether the latter were from the fossil bed or from the
whaling fleet is unknown.
In
1855, 650 tons of coprolite were brought into Fison’s Thetford works from pits
in Ipswich, Felixstowe, the Deben estuary as well as
from the Cambridge
area. It was shipped to Lynn
and then came upstream by barge. Details of the their
costs seen below, show that, when a ton of superphosphate
was selling at £6.00 a ton, there were considerable profits to be made. Labour
costs were as low as 4s.4d. (£0.22) a ton.
"COST OF
GRINDING COPROLITE
Tons £ s. d.
7 One day & nights labour 12 8
Coals . . .
18cwt …..
18 0
1.10 8
Employed 3 pairs stones and rollers.
Engine worked at 30-35 lbs or nearly full power.
Labour 1 man plus 5 boys in
day.
1 man plus 2 boys at night."
(‘The
Early Fertiliser Years 1843 – 1929', Fison’s memo
book, Fison’s Ltd)
Fison was a true Victorian entrepreneur. His memo book
recorded all sorts of things that caught his interest. In 1830 he recorded the Thetford flood that reached into some of his malt kilns and
“Mr Minn’s
parlour at the Paper Mill.” The 1832 election returns for West Suffolk were
listed, the prices of timber from Quebec in
1834, the quality of porter brewed by twelve London brewers between 1835
– 36. wool prices, corn prices and the report
on sanitary conditions in Thetford in 1868. He liked to have the background of the firms
he was working with. For example, in 1874 he checked the trustworthiness of
brewers in Huddersfield, Bradford, Leeds, Halifax
and Manchester
before selling them his malt. He was in correspondence with engineers and
chemists about the processes to be used at his works and had notes on all sorts
of things from making black ink to preparing rat poison.
He
imported products such as rye grass, rape cake, red clover, linseed cake, Lucerne, barley, bones, hemp, wool and bark into Hull, Lynn, Wells, Yarmouth and London from
Archangel, Memel St. Petersburg, Rostock, Stettin, Riga, Konigsberg, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Kiel, Rotterdam, Bordeaux, Douai,
Dundas, Nantes, and Marseilles.
In 1857 he imported 49 rolls of lead, 230 tons of bones, 572 bags of guano, 289
tons of brimstone, 20 tons of sulphur, 419 bags of nitrate soda, 134 bags of
ammonia, 100 bags of gypsum and, notably, 624 tons of
coprolite.
Analysis
of Fison’s insurance records shows that his works
were insured for £4,600 in 1854. By 1858 it was increased to £8,750. Between
1855 and the end of the century, numerous improvements were made to the site.
It had three lead chambers, stores, a counting house, new steam engines, pumps,
engine sheds, boiler houses, tool room, bone and coprolite mill house,
rectifying equipment, evaporators, coolers, bottles and piping. There was also
an extensive tramway system and railway sidings. (Ibid.)
In 1873, with the discovery of a new coprolite deposit at West Dereham in Norfolk
the company expanded into the profitable coprolite industry themselves. Whilst
they may well have done so earlier in other areas, this is the first
documentation of such. James Fison and Son, as well
as Thomas Thwaites Ball, a Burwell manure
manufacturer, had an arrangement with Hugh Aylmer, the sheep breeding landowner
of the estate, to raise these coprolites, thereby reducing their dependency on
having to rely too heavily on other coprolite merchants for their supplies.
(Ibid. Kelly's Directory, Norfolk, 1879, 1883, 1892) Only very keen competition
from the West Norfolk Farmers' Cooperative prevented their steady business in superphosphates from showing very healthy profits. (‘The Early Fertiser Years,' Fisons Journal no.77, December 1963) It was said to have
been taken over by Packards but exactly when is
uncertain.