Way’s double silicates

Are you land or are you trade? The question epitomises Britain’s obsession with class, dividing those who earn their money through inherited rents from those who work for a living. It still astonishes me to see signs for the tradesman’s entrance, a reminder that some would prefer to not see those who get their hands dirty. But it was a meeting between two men – one land, one trade – that led to the discovery of something totally new.

The tradesman was John Thomas Way (~1821–1883), a doctor’s son from Tunbridge Wells whose biography is fragmentary. We know that he began his studies in 1841 at University College, London, when Thomas Graham was professor, taking over the role of Graham’s assistant in 1842.

In 1843 Graham recommended Way to Charles Daubeny, the professor of both chemistry and botany at Oxford, who was much taken with Justus Liebig’s new textbook of agricultural chemistry. Daubeny had been lobbying for the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) to employ a chemist to help farmers understand the characteristics of their soil. In Oxford, Way used ash analysis to study the effect of light on plants, work that would continue when he began to work for the RAS.

By 1846 he had been appointed professor to the society. In 1849 he published a detailed analysis of Peruvian guano, a fertiliser that was transforming European agriculture; Britain alone was importing almost 100,000 tonnes a year. Although Liebig had analysed guano before, Way’s study was intended to be of more practical use. Analysing over 100 samples of guano coming from different Peruvian islands, Way focused on the vexed question of whether guano gave value for money compared to more local sources of nitrogen, phosphate and potash, the same N, P and K components listed on packs of garden fertiliser today.

Way would likely have had regular contact with one of the founders of the RAS, Harry Stephen Thompson, a wealthy landowner. At the family seat, the impressively landscaped Kirby Hall near York, he set about trying to improve his farming business. Thompson worried that ammonia leached out of the heaps of animal manure that built up in winter. Could the ammonia be fixed in place by adding sulfuric acid? He turned for help to a chemist/pharmacist in York, Joseph Spence. Together they conducted a series of experiments where solutions of ammonium salts were allowed to percolate through several inches of loamy soil. To their great surprise much of the ammonia was retained by the soil, an observation that they could not explain.

Digging further

Busy with other things, Thompson’s experiments did not progress further. Three years later, in 1848, he mentioned his observations to Way, who was surprised and intrigued. Unbeknown to Thompson, Way began his own experiments. Over the next two years he not only reproduced Thompson’s observations but extended them. All soluble ‘alkalis’ (cations) were retained by the soil, and could be swapped. Potassium, for example, could be replaced by magnesium or sodium by calcium. These were the first quantitative observations of what we now call ion exchange.

Way’s lecture to the RAS on 15 May 1850, which may have been attended by Prince Albert, prompted Thompson hurriedly to write up his own limited results. Way followed this with a 68-page blockbuster methodically describing each experiment and his practical conclusions in a lucid, accessible style. Clay in the soil played a key role, and the application of manure need not be carefully timed, because the valuable alkalis would not wash out.

The paper was followed two years later by another, where he deepened his investigation and made the first attempt to synthesise the active component – a ‘double silicate’ – from alkaline sodium silicate and aluminate solutions. The papers were a sensation across Europe and spurred intense study of clays and zeolites. Way would become known as ’the father of soil science’.

It’s always worth talking to a tradesman

Prince Albert, who had started to suggest that town sewage could be turned into agricultural manure, commissioned Way to analyse the sewage from Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. This work may have led to his appointment to the Royal Commission on river pollution, for which he provided a wealth of key data.

But while working on manures, Way had other irons in the fire, patenting regularly. And the result was one other ace up his sleeve that will have to wait for another edition…

Harry Thompson became a keen enthusiast for the North Eastern Railway. He was elected as MP for Grimsby but did not stand at the following election and died in 1873.

Ion exchange is ubiquitous, from detergents to dishwashers, separating charged biomolecules and assaying water. It’s a reminder that it’s always worth talking to a tradesman. You will learn something. 

Acknowledgment

I’m very grateful to Gerrylynn Roberts and especially Anna Simmons for tips and advice.