Albright and Wilson

Oldbury Division

In 1888 a patent was granted to four people from Wolverhampton covering the use of an electric furnace to produce white phosphorus from phosphate rock; and in 1890 they set up a works at Wednesfield to produce phosphorus. Albright and Wilson bought the patent and the works; and ran it for two years whilst they built their own furnace at Oldbury. The Wednesfield works was then closed down.

White phosphorus continued in production at Oldbury until 1972 when production was moved to Newfoundland. Bulk liquid white phosphorus was then transferred by special bulk tanker ship back to Portishead, Somerset. Unfortunately the move to Newfoundland had been inadequately planned and the Company encountered serious production problems with its new giant electric furnaces – several times larger than the Oldbury machines – and with the availability of skilled local labour. These problems contributed to the company's poor financial performance and precipitated the take-over by Tenneco.

Marchon Division

In 1955 Albright and Wilson purchased Marchon Products Ltd based in Whitehaven, which produced phosphorus-based detergents by the "wet" process. The A&W Group now controlled production of phosphorus compounds by both important manufacturing routes. However, the phosphate detergent business, which was the bread-and-butter market for Marchon, ran into terminal decline in the late 1970s as the eutrophication of inland waterways by pollution from detergent phosphate residues pressed the detergent formulators to move away from phosphates, thus removing Marchon's prime product application area.

The name "Marchon" ended when the French company, Rhodia, took over Albright and Wilson in 1999.