Lawes Chemical Co. at Harold Wharf

Christopher Mazeika from the Shipwright's Palace contacted me on Facebook to tell me to bid for this ashtray on eBay. For around £7 inc p&p I resurrected my PayPal account to snap up this small representation of my family name in Deptford. I have lived here 30 years and had no idea.

It was admittedly very exciting to find that my namesake (as yet connection unproved) John B Lawes had a chemical works on the very site where I have just exhibited. It is in fact, TOO WEIRD.

John Bennet Lawes founded the chemical fertiliser industry in 1842, with the development of wet process phosphoric acid technology. He was a self taught agricultural chemist and early Victorian entrepreneur who patented a process whereby ground coprolite was mixed with sulphuric acid resulting in a more soluble form of calcium phosphate or "superphosphate".

Coprolite is fossilised animal dung and composed chiefly of calcium phosphate along with minor quantities of organic matter (it is possible to infer the diet of the animal which produced the coprolite on examination). Superphosphate production factories were rapidly built around the country, where coprolite could be extracted. It had been discovered in 1840 that crops grew more strongly where the coprolite existed, but the mineral was not insoluble in water so couldn't be used until Lawes found a way to make it work. Bone ash was also used and many industries around the creek were based on using the discarded body parts of cattle.

Lawes was the founder of fertiliser (although wikipedia has some bloke called the Rev John Stevens Henslow as the one to patent the extraction process, so some more research is required!).

Lawes' first chemical works straddled the south of the present Faircharm site and the north of APT's site. This predates the present APT building.

I saw a map today at a consultation exhibition by Thames Tunnel (Thames Water) at Creekside Centre which showed the chemical works, but I've yet to track this map down. Rather ironic that Lawes made a fortune out of fossilised shit, and now I'm living in Shit Central, this area being one of the largest concentrations of sewage confluence...resulting in one of the few areas on the Thames discharging effluent into the Thames during heavy rain. The overflow is next door to the Ahoy Centre, where I have mudlarked on many an occasion and where some of my pottery fragments have been found.

At the Thames Tunnel consultation today I learned that the tunnel will merely be an overflow pipe, and not as I thought, a giant tunnel of shit channeling all out to sea. On the contrary.

After Creekery I thought my name would be associated with mud (my name is mud), but now it appears it is historically associated with shit. On my doorstep.

Discover Greenwich

Last Sunday I visited the spanking new Discover Greenwich, a permanent exhibition housed in the Royal Naval College, which tells the continuing story of the Old Royal Naval College and Maritime Greenwich. I came across an exhibit of pottery fragments:

1. Ceramic chamber pot, late 17th century
Miniature, or child-sized chamber pot in tin-glazed ware with Chinese-style decoration showing figures in a landscape, probably made in Southwark.
2. Ceramic chamber pot, mid 18th century
Large chamber pot in London-area post-medieval redware with internal lead glaze. Probably made at Woolwich or Deptford.
3. Ceramic chamber pot, mid 18th century
Chamber pot in Westerwald stoneware, imported from the Rhineland, Germany. It is decorated with an ornate floral rosette opposite the handle and large lions and medallions.
4. Ceramic dish, late 17th or 18th century
London-area post-medieval redware probably made at Woolwich or Deptford
5. Ceramic plate, early to mid-18th century
Tin-glazed with decoration in darker blue on a pale blue background, showing a peacock standing in a landscape with a border of flowers, a butterfly and a dragonfly.
6. Ceramic dish, 17th century
Tin-glazed with polychrome decoration, showing part of the leaves, stem and petals of a flower. Probably made in Southwark 1630-80.

On the way back I found the tide was out, so I did a spot of beachcombing and found a hoard of blue and white...

Mark Dion - Tate Thames Dig

In the summer last year I went to see 'Classified: Contemporary Art at Tate Britain', which was a display of recent major acquisitions which included stuff by Hirst and the Chapman brothers. I came across Mark Dion for the first time, whose Tate Thames Dig 1999 groups together objects found on the banks of the Thames in a large mahogany cabinet. One of the drawers contained nothing but blue & white ceramic fragments. The piece was the result of Dion's organised dig and beachcomb of the foreshore at Millbank and Bankside and was first displayed when Tate Modern opened. I missed it then, and quite possibly might not have noticed it then either.

"Like a good detective, Dion revels in seeing beyond individual fragments to recognise larger patterns; making connections between often seemingly unrelated objects and events. Through the careful juxtaposition of the finds from the Tate Thames Dig, Dion creates new layers of meaning, linking our thoughts to the constructions of the past and choices for the future."

Taken from Art Now: Mark Dion: Tate Thames Dig 26 October 1999 – 26 February 2000. Text by Clarrie Wallis
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/artnow/markdion/default.shtm