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Thomas Leopold Willson
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Did you know that a discovery made by a Canadian chemist helped to establish the automobile industry? Thomas Leopold Willson, a notable Canadian chemist and inventor, was born in 1860 on a small farm in Princeton, Ontario. Willson attended high school at Hamilton Collegiate Institute in Hamilton, Ontario, where he showed an interest in physics and chemistry. In particular, Willson was interested in how he could use ideas in physics and chemistry together with electricity to make practical inventions. Willson is credited with more than 60 inventions from electric arc lighting (which he patented at age 21) to gas navigational bouys and beacons which bear his name. The story is told that Willson after finishing high school began working with a blacksmith and attempted to make diamonds from limestone and coke using an electric furnace and a steam-driven electric dynamo of his own making. He actually made calcium carbide instead but did not recognize its significance until ten years later when he repeated the experiment in North Carolina.
In 1891 Willson became co-founder of the Willson Aluminum Company, located in North Carolina. It was here on May 2 in 1892 that Willson repeated his accidently discovered process for making calcium carbide and its by-product, acetylene gas. Apparently Willson’s small aluminum smelting furnace produced a slag which he threw into the nearby stream until it built up a large pile. One day, upon dumping red-hot slag into the stream there was a dazzling burst of flame. Further investigation revealed to Willson that by adding water to the smelting furnace slag he was producing a gas which he could ignite with a match. He had produced calcium carbide and acetylene gas. Willson’s discovery of a method to make calcium carbide economically led to his nickname "Carbide" Willson. In 1894 Willson initiated the industrial production of carbide in a small plant in Merritton, Ontario. Today the world wide production of calcium carbide is about 3,000,000 metric tons per year.
Willson’s discovery led to the use of acetylene in many areas of everyday life. Before the ready availability of electricity in the early 1900's, acetylene was used to light homes, lighthouses, and horseless carriages. A mixture of oxygen and acetylene gas is used as fuel in an oxy-acetylene torch. The oxy-acetylene torch has been used in metal cutting and welding since 1906 and helped to establish the automobile industry by making the mass production of automobiles possible. Today, acetylene is used in the manufacture of many chemicals in Canada. These chemicals are utilized in laboratories and to make commodities such as varnishes, explosives, and dry-cleaning solvents. Amongst the list are calcium cyanamide (fertilizer), sodium cyanide (used for gold extraction from ores), acetic acid and acetic anhydride.
When Willson died in 1915 after a short but productive life spent many in Ottawa, his contributions were widely recognized as having made significant changes to our way of life. On May 2, 1998, the American Chemical Society recognized T.L. Willson’s contribution to science by designating the site of Willson’s discovery in North Carolina a National Historic Chemical Landmark.
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