William's estimate of his standing as a chemist emerges in
a reply he gave to Counsel in a trial in 1809-10 relating to another of
his chemical discoveries.
In 1795 he had developed a cheap substitute for Russian isinglass, the
precipitant made from sturgeon for "fineing" or clarifying beer by removing
suspended particles of tannin or other foreign matter.
The increase in price of the Russian product in a very short time from
three shillings a pound to twenty-five shillings a pound made the development
of a British alternative, even if not quite as effective, economically
attractive.
There is a delightful story told by Smiles of William, on one of his
trips to London, experimenting in his lodgings with the cod skins soaked
in stale beer, which he was seeking to substitute for the sturgeon product,
and hanging them on the curtains of his room to dry.
His landlady, horrified at the use to which her hangings were being
put, immedietly threw William out, codfish skins and all.
He cannot eventually have felt too aggrieved, for in due course the
Committee of the London Brewers paid him two thousand pounds for the right
to use the substitute.
In 1809 Customs & Excise, encouraged by the Solicitor General, began
one of those absurd prosecutions for which the English legal system is
celebrated, bringing a case against two sample brewers for adulterating
their beer by adding the Murdoch fineing substitute which the Excise officers
classified as both fish and stale beer.
The Solicitor General, cross-examining William, tried the belittling
technique with which Wiliam would have long been familiar from the Watt
patent cases, but which had little effect in this instance.
SG : "What profession are you of?"
WM : " A steam engineer."
SG : "You are not a physician?"
WM : "I am not."
SG : Nor a Chymist?"
WM : "No - in a small degree but not a professional Chymist"
Nevertheless, William's "small degree" was quite sufficient to provide
the factual chemical evidence needed to flatten the prosecution case by
pointing out that the addititive, like it's predecessor, precipitated the
impurities in the beer before sinking them to the bottom of the vessel,
and could not therefore be said to be added to the beer. To drive this
point home he replied to one question : "About fourteen years since I practiced
it and lately in my own house."
The value and harmlessness of the substitute was vouched for in evidence
by Humphry Davy :
Q : "Mr. Davey we all know that you are eminently skilled in
chemistry - are you aquainted with this recipe of Mr Murdock?"
HD : "Yes."
Q : "From your knowledge upon this subject is it proper to be used
for the purpose of fineing beer?"
HD : "I believe it is if properly prepared - it is the same substance
as Isinglass."
The prosecution's next trick was to produce an obnoxious smelling bottle
of the offending addititive, collected many months before, in order to
convince the Court of its deleterious effects. With William's help, the
Brewers' counsel, Mr Raine, scothched that ploy in re-examination :
Mr R : "Supposing old Isinglass dissolved had been seized in
May and kept until September would it be as sweet in September as in May?"
WM : "I believe not."
At that point the judge intervened :
COURT : "There is nothing likely to be so offensive as Isinglass dissolved
and kept in a bottle, is it not so?"
WM "It is."
The judge, with a nice touch of patriotism, called William's version "Isinglass
made of British fish", and in his summing up commiserated with the Brewers
"in having incurred blame where to me they had merit."
He concluded "I happened to know of this British Isinglass many a day
before I came into Court - I have heard of it many months ago - I have
heard it spoken of by men of science as a very advantageous discovery."
Not surprisingly, Customs & Excise lost their prosecution.
Adapted
from the book "The Third Man" by John Griffiths (1992)