Historical Widnes

John Hutchinson built his first factory in 1847 on land between the Sankey Canal and the railway which became known as Spike Island. The factory used the Leblanc process to make alkali and was ideally located as the raw materials required could be brought there by the rail and waterways, similarly the end products could be moved anywhere else in the country or abroad. Entrepreneurs such as John McClelland, William Gossage, Frederic Muspratt, Holbrook Gaskell and Henry Deacon soon built further chemical factories nearby. Widnes grew rapidly as housing and social provision was made for the factory workers. Soon all of the local villages such as Farnworth, Appleton, Ditton and Upton were subsumed into the rapidly growing town of Widnes. Woodend became known as West Bank. In addition to the the manufacturing of products such as soap, borax, soda ash, salt cake and bleaching powder, other industries grew including iron and copper works. This led to Widnes becoming heavily polluted with smoke and chemical emissions.

Large numbers of workers came from other areas of the United Kingdom and other countries to satisfy the growing demand for workers. Irish workers were the first to migrate to Widnes but by the late 1880s large numbers arrived from Poland and Lithuania to flee persecution and poverty in their home countries. Immigrants also came from other areas, in particular Wales.

In 1890 the United Alkali Company was formed through the merger of the chemical companies making alkali by the Leblanc process. This included almost every chemical industry in Widnes, which became the principal centre of the new company. However during the 1890s the chemical business in Widnes went into decline as more efficient methods of making alkali were developed elsewhere.