Joseph Aspdin

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Patent No. BP 5022, "An Improvement in the Modes of Producing an Artificial Stone," Joseph Aspdin, October 21, 1824, p. 1/2
Patent No. BP 5022, "An Improvement in the Modes of Producing an Artificial Stone," Joseph Aspdin, October 21, 1824, page 2/2

Joseph Aspdin (* 1778 ; † March 20, 1855 in Wakefield ) was the inventor of Portland cement .

As the eldest child of bricklayer Thomas Aspdin in the Hunslet District , Leeds , he entered his father's business and married Mary Fotherby in 1811. In 1817 he opened his own shop in central Leeds. Here he must have experimented with cement production over the next few years. In 1824 he received the Patent An Improvement in the Mode of Producing an Artificial Stone , in which he used the term Portland cement .

Shortly thereafter, he set up a manufacturing company with neighbor William Beverley in Kirkgate , Wakefield, and moved his family there. In 1825 he received a second patent for the production of lime. In 1838 he had to move his company because the area was being used by the railroad. At the time, his eldest son James was working as an accountant in Leeds and his younger son William (1815–1864) ran the factory until he disappeared in 1841. In 1844 Joseph retired from professional life and transferred the company shares to James.

Aspdin's Portland cement was suitable for both mortar and stucco . He called it that because the mortar was supposed to be similar to Portland stone, which was popular at the time .

Williams finances were messy. He had gone to London and founded a factory in Rotherhithe . He had burned a new cement mixture, with more limestones and harder, that was suitable as concrete (see cement clinker ). This was used in Brunel's Thames Tunnel . In 1857 William sold his company and moved to Germany, where he founded the first cement factories in Altona and Lägerdorf and died in Itzehoe .

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personal data
SURNAME Aspdin, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British inventor of cement
DATE OF BIRTH 1778
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1855
Place of death Wakefield