Allgood
NAME:
Allgood, Edward
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Invented and developed “Japanning” lacquering process
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
1681, Pontypool, Monmouthshire, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
9 January, 1763, Monmouthshire, England. Aged 82
DISCIPLINE:
Inventor and manufacturer
FIELD:
Iron industry and lacquer industry
EDUCATION:
???
MAJOR WORK:
None
LIFE AND TIMES:
Edward Allgood’s father, Thomas, was a Quaker from Northamptonshire, England who went to Monmouthshire, Wales to escape religious persecution and who worked as manager at the Pontypool ironworks owned by John Hanbury*. Edward Allgood entered the ironworks at an early age and soon became Hanbury’s principal assistant in improving the ironworks and developing Hanbury’s hot-rolling process for making thin, malleable iron sheets called ‘black plate.’ The iron black plate was sold for kitchen- and oven-ware and it was Allgood who solved the problem of making it rust-resistant and more resistant to acid and heat by coating it thinly with tin.
He overcame the difficulties of de-scaling the iron to make a clean surface for the application of the tin by dipping the plate into an acidic liquor of fermented rye. The process of tinplating had been established in Central Europe for some time, but kept secret, and was considered so effective that the French Minister Colbert* had brought immigrant German tin-platers to France to work in the French ship-building industry. The technique was known to a few people in England by 1667.
The Pontypool operation became the first in Britain to produce tinplate on a commercial stage. Thomas Allgood had been involved in experiments at the iron works using asphaltum, during which he discovered how to make a medium that produced a brilliant durable lacquer when heated and applied to iron. He realized this was a valuable discovery but was too busy at the ironworks to investigate it. After his death in 1716, Edward and his brother John developed the process and in so doing established the Pontypool japanning industry.
‘Japan’ was a word used to describe a variety of methods of varnishing and lacquering furniture. The Japanese had known about the art of lacquering since the 3rd century, and lacquered furniture from the East had been introduced to Europe by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Lacquered objects became popular and women took up lacquering as a hobby, but Western attempts to imitate Japanese lacquer were not especially successful and lacked the strength and durability of the oriental finishes.
Edward Allgood had already overcame the problem of cleaning and polishing iron plates (essential to producing a clean surface) and together with his son Thomas, he developed a new form of lacquer based on his father’s discovery. It was a viscous, quick-drying oil made with umber (brown iron oxide) and litharge (obtained from local coal deposits) used in combination with raw linseed oil and then oxidized. The black color was obtained by adding asphaltum. As solvents and thinners they used alcohol, oil of lavender and oil of turpentine. By 1730 the process had been perfected and the Allgoods set up a factory for the production of lacquered items.
Larger items were made from thick black plate from the Hanbury ironworks and smaller ones from tinplate. The ‘factory’ was in fact a small cottage and the Allgoods kept their varnishing process a secret and at first manufactured the objects for lacquering themselves, using shears and hammers. The items were coated and then fired and rubbed down several times. The secret of the strength and durability of the Pontypool lacquer lay in the precisely-timed firing process, which exposed the layers of lacquer to heat of varying degrees.
The Allgoods also produced another type of lacquer which was transparent and could be colored with pigment, as well as a tortoiseshell lacquer made by placing irregular pieces of silver foil under a brown lacquer. After Edward’s death in 1763 his sons quarreled and a rival factory was set up at Usk. Both factories eventually prospered and as business expanded, they employed craftsmen to produce a wide range of items. Boxes, candlesticks, coffee pots, and almost anything else, were created, molded and japanned at Pontypool. The furniture designer Hepplewhite* used Pontypool varnishes for his trays. The industry expanded and created a demand for turpentine oil from colonial settlements in North Carolina (like the one which Flora MacDonald* joined in 1774).
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: Edward Allgood, inventor of “Japanning” varnish
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Babbidge, Adrian, ‘Everywhere Seen, Everywhere Admired’, A Short History of the Pontypool Japan Ware, Torfaen Museum Trust, 1984
Huth, Hans, Lacquer of the West, The History of a Craft and Industry, 1550-1950, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1971
John, W D, Pontypool and Usk Japanned Wares, The Ceramic Book Company, Newport, Monmouthshire, England, 1953.
LANGUAGE:
English
PARENTS:
Father: Thomas Allgood
Mother: ???
SIBLINGS:
Brother: John
SPOUSE:
Elizabeth
CHILDREN:
2 sons: