¹ Wolff, K. H., “Textile Beaching and the Birth of the Chemical Industry,” Business History Review, XLVIII (Summer, 1974), 143–165CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as Wolff, “Textile Bleaching”).

² A. and Clow, N. L., The Chemical Revolution; A Contribution to Social Technology (London, 1952)Google Scholar, Ch. IX, “The Scottish Bleaching Industry.”

³ Durie, A. J., “The Scottish Linen Industry, 1707–1775,” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1973)Google Scholar.

⁴ The estimate for the year 1730 is based on the number of bleachfields advertising in the Scottish press and/or those to which the Board of Trustees gave assistance. The figure for 1770 is derived from A. and N. Clow, The Chemical Revolution, 180. Higgins, S. H., A History of Bleaching (London, 1924Google Scholar) states incorrectly that “the first bleachfield of which there is a record in Scotland was Fletcher's at Salton, East Lothian, about 1730.” That honour probably belongs to Dalquhurn Field, near Dumbarton, which was in operation in 1727. In this, and other respects, Higgins is not wholly reliable.

⁵ According to the Scottish Customs Port Books (Scottish Record Office [hereafter S.R.O.], E504, Collectors' Quarterly Accounts), the last year in which linen was exported from Scotland to Holland to be bleached was 1754.

⁶ The quantity of linen printed in Scotland grew from 33,000 sq. yds. in 1750 to 248,000 in 1770 and 1,131,000 in 1780 (S.R.O. E903 2–5).

⁷ For example, the Gentlemen and Merchant Proprietors of Clockmilne Bleachfield, near Duns, advertised that their field newly erected would be managed by Peter Vandermaas from Holland. Caledonian Mercury, March, 1737.

⁸ This policy is discussed in some detail in a forthcoming article in the 1976 issue of Transactions of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalists Society on Saltoun Bleachfield, 1746–1773. After 1752 Saltoun was the field at which the Trustees' bleaching apprentices were trained. A brief outline of the history of Saltoun Bleachfield is given in Malcolm, C. A., The British Linen Bank (Edinburgh, 1950), Appendix 3, 237–240Google Scholar.

⁹ Wolff, “Textile Bleaching,” 149.

¹⁰ The reference made by Wolff in the relevant footnote 19, p. 149, is positively misleading in that the Trustees' grant of £50 per acre towards the fitting-up costs of new bleachfields mentioned by Campbell, R. H., Scotland since 1707 (Oxford, 1965), 60Google Scholar, was applied on a limited scale only and had been completely withdrawn by 1750.

¹¹ National Library of Scotland [hereafter N.L.S.], Saltoun MSS, box 330, “Account of Money expended on Luncarty Bleachfield” (1761), and Warden, A. J., The Linen Trade, Ancient and Modern (London 1864), 529Google Scholar.

¹² A. and N. L. Clow, The Chemical Revolution, 172: “So extensive was the area devoted to bleachfields, that with the introduction of chemical bleaching materials … the release of land for agricultural purposes was heralded as one of the great benefits conferred by chemistry on the community.” Cited by Wolff, “Textile Bleaching,” 155, footnote 35.

¹³ Wolff, “Textile Bleaching,” 150.

¹⁴ A. and N. L. Clow, The Chemical Revolution, 183.

¹⁵ Home, F., Experiments in Bleaching (Edinburgh, 1756), 92Google Scholar. He summarises the difference thus (91): “The milk sours are very dear and often difficult to be got, but the vitriol are cheap, may be easily procurred and at any time.” There is plenty of contemporary evidence to confirm the trouble that the supply of buttermilk could and did cause.

¹⁶ Their role is discussed by A. and Clow, N. L., “Vitriol in the Industry Revolution,” Economic History Review, XV (1945), 45–46Google Scholar, and in The Chemical Revolution, 136–137.

¹⁷ N. L. S. Saltoun MSS, Box 329. Copy letter from Dr. John Roebuck of Birmingham to Sam Hart, “concerning bleaching with oil of vitriol,” 14 March, 1752.

¹⁸ Ibid.; copy of a letter “in answer to Mr. Garbett's desire to be informed how far Vitriol might be a saving in bleaching;” 27 February, 1753.

¹⁹ Sam Hart, who had trained at Saltoun, and became master-bleacher at the nearby Ford bleachfield in 1754, claimed in 1762 that he had been using oil of vitriol for “some years” for bleaching in the Dutch method, and that he had been guided in this and other matters by Dr. Home (N. L. S. Saltoun MSS, box 330). Home, Experiments, 281–282, confirmed that he had guided Hart in the location of his field.

²⁰ A. and N. L. Clow, The Chemical Revolution, 66–67, 177.

²¹ Compare John Christie of Ormiston bleachfield: “Our own kelp is used in many fields especially to yr Coarser Cloths & Ansrs extremely well for yr purpose but… we find it leaves a yellowish tincture and discolours it.” (Observations on Dr. Cullen's “Remarks on the art of Bleaching of Whitening Linen;” Saltoun MSS, box 329.) Cullen confirmed this view himself by calling kelp very cheap and “foul” in his Memorial of 1763 reviewing “attempts to find substitutes from home Scottish materials to supplant the foreign potashes and alkali salts imported for the bleaching industry.” S.R.O. NG 1/53/1; also, Home, Experiments, 151.

²² For example, in 1751 the Board received a petition from linen merchants at Dundee who stated that “low priced cloth there cannot be as well bleached except by pure lime water” and said that this could be done safely (S.R.O. NG 1/1/11 Minutes of the Board of Trustees, 22 May 1751). They consulted, via Lord Milton, James Wright, a bleacher at Lawtoun near Coupar Angus, who replied on 23 October that “twelve months ago [I] would have said very much in connection with lime but now I am less in love with it and besides if it were allowed the cheapness of it makes the use of it Dangerous as its like putting a Sword in the hand of a madman… with its corroding quality. Innumerable mistakes are commited by the vulgar in liming, they only know in general that its a thing that whitens cloth cheap and is Easily purchased.” (The tenor is similar, and the phrasing identical in places, to the letter cited by Home, Experiments, 211–215, on the same subject.)

²³ Edinburgh University Library, Joseph Black MSS, Gen 873, Correspondence of Joseph Black, Vol. I (1763–1783). He looked at the question again in 1784; see Letter from Dr. Black to the Board of Trustees reviewing the results obtained from a competition held to make Scottish ashes, S.R.O. NG 1/53/1, Register of Theses and Memorials on Technical Subjects.

²⁴ Wolff, “Textile Bleaching,” 155–156.

²⁵ Gauldie, E. E., “Mechanical Aids to Linen Bleaching in Scotland,” Textile History, I (1970), 129–157Google Scholar.

²⁶ Ibid., 131–142. Also Home, Experiments, 95, describes improvements in the rubbing boards.