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Thursday 28th November 2024 – Club Meeting – Speaker Dr. Diana Leitch, who gave a talk “Brunner & Mond, their lives and legacy”.
Dr Diana Leitch
Diana started by outlining the heritage of the two Brunner brothers, Henry & John. Their father had come to England from Switzerland to teach at a school in Liverpool eventually marrying a Manx girl and fathering 5 children, the last birth sadly resulting in his wife’s death. Henry eventually went to universities in the UK and Germany before getting employment at a soap manufacturing facility in the Woodend district of Widnes created by Liverpool entrepreneur John Hutchinson. The factory used the LeBlanc process for creating the alkaline needed for soap production but the system created a few nasty bi-products which affected a wide area around Widnes and beyond. John Brunner eventually joined the business initially in an administrative capacity.
Ludwig Mond came to work in England via work in Holland from his home town of Kassel in Germany. He joined Hutchinson’s business as part of attempts to clean up the processes. The Brunner brothers got on well with Ludwig, often during discussion sessions at the Snig Pie Inn on the banks of the Mersey. Eventually Henry, John and Ludwig started an intellectual group called “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
In 1871 Henry, John and Ludwig started talking about a partnership as a vehicle to take their careers forward. A year later, in 1872, they met up with Ernest Solvay who had developed a process which didn’t use coal or solid salt but brine instead. This Solvay Process was so much cleaner and produced far fewer polluting bi-products.
The three partners searched around for a suitable site to build a new factory and with a local go-between, Edward Milner, they found that Lord Stanley of Alderley was trying to sell Winnington Hall on the outskirts of Northwich. With massive borrowings the three took the risk and bought the estate. The three families moved in to the Hall and the Winnington Works was born.
Developments moved quickly, by 1876 they were debt free and by 1880 they had perfected the Solvay Process. In 1891 Ludwig had become a Fellow of The Royal Society having moved to London and by 1900 Brunner & Mond Ltd. had become the UK’s largest Chemical company. Part of Ludwig Mond’s legacy was the development of Nickel Carbonyl and other metal carbonyls. Sadly he died in London aged 70 at the end of 1909. Henry Brunner passed in June 1917 and John died a couple of years later in July 1919 at Chertsey in Surrey.
The overriding feature of the three lives was their massive philanthropic work within their work environments and within the communities where they lived, even extending back to Switzerland and Germany. Beneficiaries being schools, synagogues, churches and even the Transporter Bridge joining Runcorn to Widnes across the River Mersey.
Thursday 21st November 2024 – Walk- Lower Peover
Members of the Knutsford Rex Probus Walking Group braved the elements and difficult driving conditions to follow a 4.5mile route, proceeding past the Tree of Imagination, taking in some of the lanes, fields and farm tracks of Lower Peover & Smithy Green. One benefit of the freeze was to experience solid mud unlike the liquid stuff that’s plagued our walks for most of the year.
Thursday 14th November 2024 – Club Meeting – Speaker, Mr Tom Jones who gave a talk Chester’s Ghosts – The Inside Story
Tom started his talk by stating that he had qualified as a Chester tour guide in 2001, and two years later he was asked to do some ghost tours of Chester.
After a couple of years, he decided to do some detailed research into the background of the ghost stories and revealed some very interesting facts.
A lot of the stories have been based upon experiences for which there was no obvious logical explanation. All he asked was that the members all kept an open mind.
These stories included the collapse of the bell tower near the Roman Amphitheatre. The noise was heard 15 miles way, but nobody knows why it suddenly collapsed. Not far from this point a monk sometimes appears in a distressed state, asks a question in a language which nobody understands, repeats the question and then goes away looking frustrated. He appeared in front of an American tourist one day during a snow shower. The lady was horrified to see that the monk had not left any footprints in the snow! There were many similar stories, including visions of a lady seen at windows above the Bluebell Restaurant, waiting for her lover to return from battle, unaware that he had been killed. Apparently when she did learn of his fate, she took her own life.
There was also a travel guide writer who was being given a tour of the City by Tom when the writer had an inexplicable experience in Chester Cathedral which made him yell out, but he cannot recall why.
Tom concluded his talk and invited questions at the end of his presentation.
Thursday 7th November 2024 – Walk – Kidsgrove Area
Knutsford Walking Group ventured out to Kidsgrove where the hardy walkers met under the joint leadership of Jim & Evelyn Flett. They started with a visit to the Northern portals of the two Harecasle Tunnels on the Trent & Mersey Canal. There, Jim gave an interesting potted history of the construction of the tunnels by the two great civil engineers James Brindley & Thomas Telford, and how the coming of the Stoke to Macclesfield railway impacted on them. The five mile walk took a direction South, guided by Evelyn, past Bathpool Reservoir to the southern portals. Returning back through the delightful Bathpool Park, before decamping to the Bleeding Wolf at Scholar Green.