Dyson Brothers and Brotherton
of Wakefield
1878 Edward Allen Brotherton became a founding partner (with the backing of relatives) in the firm of Dyson Brothers and Brotherton, based in Wakefield, manufacturer of ammonium sulphate. The firm was not technically innovative, aiming rather to exploit the large supplies of ammoniacal liquor produced in the coal-gas industry. It was served by an extensive transportation network, which moved the ammoniacal liquor from gasworks in the surrounding towns to Wakefield, where it was processed on a large scale.
1870s Secured the contract to supply Brunner, Mond and Co with ammonia for their Solvay plant making sodium carbonate, which was growing very rapidly.
Established other factories, on a similar basis to the one at Wakefield, in several major conurbations.
It exploited other opportunities for the sale of ammonia, supplying the textile industry and becoming associated with the Cassel Cyanide Co, supplying ammonia for make potassium cyanide for the extraction of gold.
1890 Partnership dissolved. '...the Partnership heretofore subsisting between the undersigned, George Dyson, Frederick Dyson, Edward Allen Brotherton, and Herbert Dyson, carrying on business at Wakefield and Leeds, in the county of York, as Manufacturing Chemists, was dissolved as and from the 30th day of June, 1889; since which date the same business has been continued by the said Edward Allen Brotherton on his own account...'[1]. The company became Brotherton and Co.