This book provides a history of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), a large Britain- based chemical firm which was a major industrial player in the twentieth century. Once a model for Britain’s industrial reach and dominance, ICI collapsed in the mid-2000s, with some still profitable elements sold off to other chemical firms. The book focuses on the firm’s origin site in the Northeast of England, around Middlesbrough, engaging the remnants of the company magazine, oral histories and social media posts, and material artifacts in the world, to relate a history of the social, environmental, cultural and imaginative and bodily impact of the presence (and then absence) of ICI. This unique work is open to coincidence and speculation, drawing on science fictional and urban myth narratives which emanate from the area. Through the lens of global narratives of industrial and philosophical innovation, it inquires into uncommon and diverse themes, such as the manufacture of Quorn, the place of photographic mediation of the factory, and industrial disease. Setting out from a context of heavy industry and material processing, the book seeks to stimulate poetic and creative thinking around the ways in which people’s lives were enmeshed with synthetic chemicals and the dreams that seemed to ooze and seep from them as by-products.

The pharmaceutical industry has changed beyond all recognition in the past 100 years. The modern industry is constantly in the news as new breakthroughs in medical treatment are announced, often provoking ethical and social debates about the implications of new technologies. This volume facilitates the study of the industry by providing information on the present location of pharmaceutical archives. The core of the book consists of a business-by-business guide to the industry's records. Each entry includes a brief history of the company, a summary of its surviving archives and a bibliography of related publications. Similar entries exist for trade associations and schools of pharmacy associated with the industry and there are two appendices listing small collections of records held and relevant public records. The historical compendium is supplemented by three introductory essays, written by leading academics in the field, outlining the history of the industry and describing the nature and uses of the archival records which it has created. These essays are supplemented by a select chronology of pharmaceutical legislation and a select bibliography of histories relating to the pharmaceutical industry in general. A users guide helps readers understand how the business entries were constructed and is supplemented by a glossary of terms used in this book As such, this book will no doubt prove an invaluable resource to researchers undertaking comparative studies of the pharmaceutical industry, the history of medicine and the retailing of medical drugs.

Originally published in 1988, this book examines company provision of welfare in the century preceding the Second World War, a period of enormous change in the structure and organisation of British industry and management. The creation of large-scale, corporate companies increased the need for settled, experienced company workforces and for adequate levels of industrial welfare. The paternalistic, frequently ad hoc methods associated with smaller firms were replaced with systematic schemes. This process is illustrated and discussed in 5 detailed case studies with supportive evidence from many other industries. Moreover, the political aspects of industrial welfare are not ignored. The role of employers in influencing the final form of social legislation for the benefit of their own company schemes is crucial to understanding the development of industrial welfare.