Welsh Journals

John Jones "an able chemist" as manager. Donbavand was the superintendent of the Greenfield Copper and Brass Company works and vitriol (an impure form of sulphuric acid) was used after the annealing process which followed the battering of copper and brass articles. The hammered vessels would be submerged in vitriol in lead lined troughs to remove the scale caused by oxidation during annealing. Consequently the main customer of the Pen y maes Company (which became The Holywell Vitriol Company after 1796) was Donbavand's employers. The Pen y maes Company became a minor partner in 1792 in a short lived venture with the Parys Mine Company and the Greenfield Copper and Brass Company in the Garston (Liverpool) Vitriol Company.39 It is interesting to note that there was a Samuel Donbavand (a chemist) and his family associated with the Patten family in Warrington. It is possible, though there is no proof, that Daniel Donbavand was related to this family and came to Holywell to work for Thomas Patten but stayed on when Thomas Williams and his associates took over the works. Most of the trade of the copper firms were carried on by ships. Pennant reports that there were 30 to 40 ships of 30 to 50 tons each engaged in carrying copper and brassware to Liverpool. He does not say by whom these ships were owned Thomas Williams or an associated company e.g. The Amlwch Shipping Co., which included in its partners Michael Hughes and John Stephens of the Liverpool Copper Office. From the wharves at Greenfield there would be numerous carriers with horses and carts to transport the copper to the works and the finished wares to the ships. There was a private road to the east of the stream and the ponds which provided the route for communication between the works without using the turnpike road. THE WORKS AND THEIR PROCESSES By the end of the eighteenth century there were six sites with copper brass works on them and with associated ponds and rows of workers cottages. In 1754-5 when Reinhold Angerstein visited Thomas Patten's works40 several processes were located on the same site and the workmen could carry out the operations accord- ing to the orders received for particular products Thus at the time of Angerstein's visit to Greenfield the rolling mills were idle while the workmen concentrated on an order for wire. However, under the direction of Thomas Williams each site specialised in a part- 38 MSS 380 MD 124, Liverpool Record Office, Picton Library. 40 Rhys Jenkins MSS, Liverpool University Library MS 7.1(22).