Cameron & Campbell

Cameron & Campbell, Parkhead Chemical Works.—

    The important industry of chemical manufacture ranks among the representative productive enterprises of modem Glasgow, and one of the most notable of the many prominent concerns thus engaged is the well-known house of Messrs. Cameron & Campbell, controllers of the Parkhead Chemical Works. These works date their history, under the direction of the firm mentioned, from the year 1865, and since that time they have undergone successive enlargements and extensions of capacity which have resulted in the attainment of their present very extensive proportions.

    The business was inaugurated by Messrs. James Cameron, who died in 1874, Robert Cameron, and Archibald Campbell, who died in 1885, and the sole principal of the house to-day is Mr. Robert Cameron. Under his direction the trade of the firm, which has always manifested tendencies towards steady development, is being rapidly and continuously increased, and the concern enjoys at the present time a prosperity greater than at any previous period of its existence.

    The ground occupied by the Parkhead Chemical Works comprises an area of fully an acre in extent, and is covered by the various buildings devoted to the manufacture and distillation of a wide range of chemical acids and liquors called into requisition in divers industrial and general connections.

    The principal products-of the works are various — pyroligneous acid, obtained from the- destructive distillation of wood ; wood-tar, charcoal for ironfounders, and the same commodity in various grades for gunpowders, distillery purposes, and sanitary and ironing uses ; wood naphtha, acetate of lime, and two grades of acetic acid ; pure vinegar for pickling ; iron liquor, tin red liquor, common red liquor, purple fixing liquor ; nitric acid, red and rectified ; braziers' dipping acid ; muriatic acid, muriate of iron, nitrate cake, salt cake, nitrates of iron and copper, sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitrate of soda, &c.

    The speciality of the house consists in red liquor for Turkey-red dyers. This is a department which has received the firm’s particular attention, and their manufacture of red liquor, said to be the largest in that line in Scotland, is highly reputed in the dyeing industry which flourishes so successfully in Glasgow and North Britain generally.

    The equipment of the Parkhead Works is of a most complete and effective description throughout, and employment is afforded to a numerous force of hands. The home trade controlled is one of very considerable magnitude, and through the medium of chemical brokers a large amount of export trade is also carried on, and in this way Messrs. Cameron & Campbell’s goods find their way to a ready market. The whole business is thoroughly well conducted upon a sound and well-balanced basis,, and is fully and creditably representative of the several departments of chemical manufacture it has so successfully specialised.

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