The Teenager Who Stained a Fortune and Lost an Industry

In 1856, an eighteen year old student named William Perkin was trying to make the malaria drug quinine from coal tar when his experiment left a dark residue that dyed silk a bright purple. Rather than treating the stain as a failed result, he saw a product. With his father and brother he built a factory at Greenford, near London, and in the following years the colour, later called mauve, became fashionable in Britain and France, reportedly helped by the example of the French empress.

Perkin's commercial instincts were unusual for a chemist. He had to teach dyers, who were used to natural dyes, how to apply a synthetic one, and he reportedly worked closely with them to adapt the process to cotton as well as silk. Yet the lead he gained did not last. Chemists in Germany, backed by firms that employed large research teams, found dozens of new synthetic dyes in the following decades, and by the end of the century the German chemical industry dominated the world market. Perkin sold his business in 1874, while still in his thirties, and returned to research.

Some historians argue that Britain lost its lead because of weak links between universities and industry, since German firms hired academic chemists while British firms often did not. Others point to patent rules and the supply of skilled graduates. The relative weight of these explanations is still debated.