LUDWIG MOND. TO CLYDACH & BEYOND.

March 2, 2020March 3, 20204 years ago 7 min read

Ludwick Mond will be a name which is immensely familiar to those in and around Clydach but also in various places across the globe (something which you may not have known).

Born in 1839 into a wealthy family in Kassel, Germany, he studied Chemistry in university but left without a degree. He moved on to work in factories (I assume not sweeping the floor though!) in Germany and Netherlands before heading to England in 1862.

Mond worked at John Hutchinsons & Co in the Windies where he met and befriended John Brunner. Mond formed a partnership with John Brunner and developed a method to produce soda ash at an industrial level, something previously difficult to achieve. It is almost impossible to comprehend the potential for an ambitious chemist with resources and contacts throughout the globe in the 19th century.

In 1874, Brunner Mond & Company launched its first factory in Winnington, Cheshire. Such was the success, it became the largest and most successful soda company in the world. Expanding into cosmetics, soaps, plastic bags even. Acquiring other companies along the way from all over the globe.

By the 1920s, there was a huge global demand for soda ash, especially from Japan and the price was increasing. Magadi in Kenya became a rival to Bruner Mond & Company. An initial attempt to purchase Magadi was refused by the Secretary of State for the Colonies but it was later granted. This gave BM&C a basic monopoly of the Soda ash business.

Just to give an idea of the scale of the business, in 2010 it bought British Salt for £93 million. By then ‘Brunner Mond & Company’ had been bought out itself in 2006, by TATA Chemicals, a sister company of TATA steel. We are talking big, BIG business!Heading back to the late 1800s, the ambition of Ludwig Mond was merely just beginning.

He discovered Nickel Carbonyl which was useful as it was simple to get nickel from its ores in a process named, you guessed it ‘the Mond process’. The Mond Nickel Company followed and the Mond Works at Clydach.

While the works at Clydach were being constructed. Ludwig Mond purchased mines in Ontario Canada to acquire the Nickel. One in 1899 in Denison, renamed Victoria Mine (keep the Monarchs happy). A second mine in Garson. In 1911 The Mond company constructed a new smelter in Coniston and purchased mining rights at Frood Extension.

It is difficult to fully understand this. Here you have a German, acquiring land in Clydach to build a factory which will import ore from Ontario in Canada. In 2020, with the internet and flights across the world then this would be difficult. In 1899, this is insane. Sudbury (closest Town to mines in Canada) didn’t even have a railway until 16 years earlier.

No mining took place at Frood until the 1920s. When mining began, the scale of the Nickel at Frood became apparent. In 1928, a rival company ‘INCO’ had purchased rights to mine a part of Frood and began to mine. But it was clear that they were part of the same ore body.

Alfred Mond (Ludwigs son) negotiated an agreement in 1929 where the interests of the Mond Nickel Company were merged into the International Nickel Company through the issue of the latter’s stock in exchange for the outstanding stock of Mond. Basically the Mond became INCO but those who owned the Mond took a share of INCO.

It is impossible to know exactly what the deal was. But on August 14th 2006, Brazilian mining company CVRD extended an all-cash offer to buy Inco for $17 billion. You wouldn’t need to own too high a percentage of that to be feeling OK……

They say War is good for the economy.
During WWII 40% of the Nickel used for artillery by the allies was mined at Frood. A process of extracting Nickel discovered by Ludwick Mond and taken globally.

The wealth and power of Ludwig Mond must have been absolutely beyond our comprehension. But you can’t help but admire what he achieved with that. The name ‘Mond’ employed huge numbers of people in various settlements, all across the globe. His name and legacy is plastered across Clydach but Winnington boasts a Mond House, a statute of Ludwig himself and is very similar in keeping to the Clydach Mond. No doubt there will be similar ‘Mond Houses’ in Kenya, The Netherlands and Canada where settlements grew almost entirely because of his industry.

The Mond Family

I must confess to getting quite freaked out at the scale of this family once I divulged myself into it. Feelings of admiration but also anger. You cannot help but admire the achievements but I also fury at the inequality which exists amongst ‘them and us’.

Ludwig was clearly a clever man and Clydach continues to benefit to this day from his vision. But I don’t genuinely believe that he was any more of a genius than the brightest talents within Clydach now, or then.

He simply had the financial resources, access to the education, contacts and backing to achieve what very, very, very few have.

Ludwicks eldest son ‘Sir Robert Mond’ followed his fathers footsteps in Chemistry but also Archelogy. Educated at Cambridge, Zurich, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Honours (as well as a knighthood) from Paris, Toronto, Liverpool and pretty much anywhere he visited (which was pretty much everywhere). He had two daughters and his family line is difficult to track down after that.

His other son Alfred Mond is easier to track to modern day though. He married Violet Gotze who was also a very important person. Her influence with David Lloyd George secured Monds appointment to ministerial office. Alfred was created a Baronet in 1910 and known as Baron Melchett.

Their child Henry Mond (2nd Baron Melchett) also became a member of Parliament. His son Julian (3rd Baron Melchett) opted for the banking industry (among other things) helping to set up Hill Samuel. This bank was bought by TSB (later Lloyds) in 1987 for $1.3 billion (back then!). In 1966 Harold Wilson asked him to be chairman of a committee to plan the nationalisation of the steel industry, effectively British Steel (just in his spare time… you know… we all get those calls from time to time….).

At this stage, I’m getting quite annoyed with how our world works. It is, I suppose possible to have a bloodline where the gene pool is so immensely superior to you and I that every offspring becomes the greatest in the world at whatever they decide to do…

But if I’m going to accept that then that opens up a huge can of worms. Are all Ethiopians biologically stupid because they have a history of starving to death? I like to think that we are all now of an understanding that this isn’t the case. That if a starving Ethiopian had somehow swapped places with Ludwig Mond at birth then all of these ‘Baron Melchetts’ would have starved to death before their 18th birthday and quite possibly we’d be talking about Adebayo Works in Clydach.

So as much as I admire Ludwick Mond, I can’t help but get angry about the privilege which drives the world.

But thankfully Peter Mond (4th Baron Melchett) seemed to agree. An Etonian (of course, just like the rest in the family) and a politician. But Peter hated the class and hereditary pier system which he had benefited from and is making me angry.

Peter refused to marry, deliberately denying his eldest son from becoming ‘5th Baron Melchett’. An MP but for Labour and not the conservatives as with his family tradition. A campaigner for Environmental rights, arrested for protesting against GM crops, fought for protecting bats.

A progressive humanist, who fought for a 16 year old girl to be freed from prison for killing her father because of his sexual abuse towards her. Peter died in 2018 aged 70. His two children (born out of wedlock) are a farmer and a Barrister.

Wherever you go in our industrial heartland, there is a wealthy, ambitious, important person who made millions from the mine or the factory where the town, village or city grew. Today, we have Amazon.