William Champion 's (1709–1789) Warmley Brassworks is of national significance with the highest category as a Scheduled Monument.
Warmley Quaker Industrial Village 1746 – 1769 Sources:
Established in 1746 by the Quaker industrialist William Champion, it was once the largest and most technologically advanced brass-manufacturing complexes in Europe. William Champion's significance extends beyond his with patenting a process for zinc and brass production. It combined Champion's manufacturing, water management, workers' housing, his family's home and landscaped garden.The first integrated industrial settlement where all the processes of brass production occurred on one site. and integrated the works and garden. Today it is recognised for its historical as well as industrial and architectural significance. Many of its remaining structures are designated as listed buildings, and many are at risk.
Background Champion's approach can be considered within the wider network of Quaker industrialist in Bristol and Coalbrookdale reflecting a Quaker industrial ethos with early technological innovation and community planning. His family had close commercial and religious connects with other Quaker families, including Darby's, Lloyds and Goldneys. Abraham Darby's and Richard Champion's documented involvement with the Bristol Quaker workhouse (1696), including financial support for its construction, and the later recorded visit of a member of the Champion family provide evidence of a shared institutional experience. This is significant because the Quaker workhouse embodied ideas of John Bellers' 1695 College of Industry concerning, training, education, welfare and community organisation.
History
Brass was produced before Roman times, but its composition was not properly understood until the Renaissance. European brass making expanded in the post-medieval period, with water-powered hammers introduced to produce wares such as pots in Germany and the Netherlands. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the industry became established in England. Quakers including Abraham Darby brought skilled workers were brought over from the Netherlands to sites including Bristol Brass, Coalbrookdale, and Warmley.
Early life At the age of 15, for 5 years, William Champion visited the manufacturing regions of continental Europe. Later accounts state that he spent several years in Holland and Germany studying brass and zinc manufacture, although the precise itinerary and the extent to which his subsequent zinc process derived from knowledge acquire on these travels remain uncertain.
On returning home in 1730, he become a junior partner in the Bristol Brass Company. He then experimented for six years to develop a process to create zinc – then known as spelter. He applied for, and was granted a July 1738 patent, No. 564 ‘A Method of Invention for the Reducing of Sulphurous British Mineralls into a Body of Metallick Sulphur’, for his coal-furnace powered distillation process, that he used to vaporise zinc oxide, from calcined calamine ore, placed in refractory clay retorts, with vapours exhausted through iron pipes into a vat of water, where they would solidify in to metallic form. His method was a scaled-up and coal fired development on the method used at the Zawar mines, in India, since the 12th century AD.p. 46, Ancient mining and metallurgy in Rajasthan, S. M. Gandhi, chapter 2 in Crustal Evolution and Metallogeny in the Northwestern Indian Shield: A Festschrift for Asoke Mookherjee, M. Deb, ed., Alpha Science Int'l Ltd., 2000, . The system remained in production for over 100 years.
Baber's Tower 1738 In 1738 he established his first attempt at manufacturing zinc at Baber's Tower, a few minutes away from the family house at 63 Old Market. The works were associated with the Bristol Brass Company, rather than being demonstrably wholly independent. By September 1742 he had produced significant quantities of zinc from six crucibles located in the furnace, at a cost of around £7,000.
In September 1742, local residents reported that the site was a 'common nuisance' to the city council, and importers flooded the market with cheap zinc. So William Champion closed the works. Warmley Works & Garden 1742 His father, Nehemiah Champion married Martha Vandewall, the sister of Thomas Goldney III. in 1742. So Thomas Goldney III became William Champion's step-uncle. The Goldney family owned the land in Warmley, and in 1746 , William left the Bristol Brass Company and began to construct the Warmley Works. With tools and manufacturing equipment supplied by the Darby Ironworks at Coalbrookdale, over the next few years Warmley Works became the biggest metal processing plant in the world, with outputs of zinc, copper, brass and other metals.
William Champion physically intertwined the works and garden. Unlike Goldney's pleasure garden, it had few visitors. The garden were an integral part of Champion's industrial community. Its primary purpose was to support the brassworks and provide a healthy, self-sufficient environment for the workers and their families who lived on the site. Many features were dual purpose, being both functional for the industrial processes and part of the Dutch styled landscape. Many of the structures were built using recycle waste. The Grotto One of England's largest surviving grottoes is of national importance, extending over 100 feet from entrance to the deepest point. It contains the country's only known hot plunge pool. Built with durable, heat retaining materials - including recycled black copper-slag blocks and furnace clinker for the walls rather than conventional decorative shells. it acted as an industrial hydrothermal spa for health, recreation, and relief for workers from the intense heat and noise of the works.
Hot water from a Newcomen engine cascaded 20 feet down before filling a deep square hot plunge pool, two plunge pools, and a long bath. From the central chamber rustic archways open into surrounding rooms, featuring 12 feet high faces possibly as Quaker allegories and today described as grotesque faces.
Workers' Housing - The Row or The Rank This terrace of 13 purpose built workers' houses is amongst the earliest in Britain. Each house had 3 storeys, with room measuring about 13 ft by 13 ft, with a smaller rear half room 6ft 6 ins used as a kitchen. The total floor area was about 592 sq feet (55 square metres).The scale and quality were exceptional and remained comparable with other workers' housing for 140 years, until Bournville village (1893).
The buildings featured symmetrical public facades facing out, with back slag blocks as quoins and wind sills. The rear used cheaper materials, giving rise the description 'brick backs'.
Similar housing terraces were built at nearby Mill Lane, Bitton (demolished 1968) and Kelston. The terrace was demolished for road widening in 1968, its foundations and long individual gardens lie below a carpark, the road and buildings.
Statue of Neptune Considered Britain's largest garden statue and one of the earliest surviving concrete structures. Standing approximately 30 feet (10metres) tall, the Grade II listed "Warmley Giant" was constructed by Champion using recycled materials. standing at the centre of a 13 acre artificial lake. Facing the works, where the large brass basins - called 'Neptunes' - were produced for the transatlantic slave trade.
Glistening white cement and plaster formed the face chest and arms. In contrast, the hair, cloak, and lower body were created using rough black industrial cinders and clinker waste - the glassy, stony residue from smelting. Windmill It is recognised as the first non-agricultural, ore-crushing windmill to be built in England, and the surviving masonry tower remains the country's oldest and most complete surviving industrial windmill structure of its type. It operated a stamping system to crush raw calamine and copper ores prior to smelting. It is a prominent landmark, giving the area its modern name "Warmley Tower" Icehouse One of the largest in the country, it is the earliest of the few commercial ice houses still in existence. It was used to store ice harvested from the lake so that the water power would not cease. It was then used for domestic and commercial use.Predominantly subterranean structure, 35 feet (10m) in diameter and 20 feet (6m deep), the lower 3.5m is below ground level. The Clocktower and Factory The clocktower is the earliest surviving purpose built industrial clock tower. Constructed around 1746, it makes extensive use of recycled black blocks and is part of the first integrated factory, housing all stages of the pin manufacturing under one roof.
The Clocktower, with its 1764 bell, represented one of the earliest physical shifts away from agrarian labour towards time-regulated factory work for the children, women and men. Grade ii listed.
The Summer House Possibly the earliest surviving example where a gatehouse controlled the water flow into the lake, pond and canal system, the stellated building constructed from copper slag blocks, resembling a small castle, with integrated productive and ornamental landscapes. The building overlooked the water level, powering the waterwheels. It may have been the home for the keeper. Chequered Wall Garden A decorative wall built of clincher and slag blocks in a chequered design. It may have reflected Quaker links with botanists.
Boathouse A structure built from copper slag blocks, situated near the Echo Pond. It is awaiting repairs to the missing roof. The Mound A raised viewing mound (also known as a snail mound) was a typical 18th century garden feature offfering a view over the reservoir/lake and walks.
Kingswood, Kelston, and Bitton 1761 William continued to expand the business through development at both the Warmley site, as well as new furnaces at Kingswood, a forge at Kelston near the River Avon, and a battery mill at Bitton on the River Boyd. By 1754, he had:
Champion's Dock 1765 By 1765, with excess capital on his hands, William commenced development of a new dock at Rownham on the eastern bank of the River Avon, which would be capable of holding 36 large ships. However, after the increased cost of construction depleted his resources, and with a distinct lack of trade, he sold the dock in 1770 to the Merchant Venturers for £1,770, who renamed it The Merchants' Dock.
Bristol's Floating Harbour During the dock's construction, William had also proposed creating a complete floating harbour at Bristol, by building lock gates on the River Avon where it junctioned with the River Frome. However, the plan was abandoned due to an estimated cost of £37,000.
Downfall By 1767, the Warmley Company claimed to have a capital of £200,000 and to give employment to about 2,000 people. Further, William had taken out additional patents covering: the refining of copper by using wrought iron pipes to remove arsenic from the smelt; using pit coal instead of charcoal to make brass wire; using zinc sulphide instead of calamine to make his brass.