Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833 ~ 1896)
LOCAL HISTORY
The Nobel Prizes are announced annually; world-famous coveted prizes for those who confer “the greatest benefit on mankind” in sciences, literature, economics and peace. They are named after Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist who, horrified that his armaments and explosives empire would earn him the epitaph “Merchant of Death,” left his fortune for the furtherance of world peace and progress. many looking for a safe way of using it. The route was punctuated by explosions and tragedy; a nitroglycerine explosion at his Alfred Nobel himself lived for a period of family’s armaments factory in Sweden in time at Hawthorn Cottage in Laurieston, 1864 killed his own brother and four others. near Falkirk. His story meets that of a Undaunted, Alfred pressed on and a year former Falkirk High School pupil, George later with German business partners he McRoberts, a local chemist and explosives built a factory at an isolated location near expert who founded a chemical factory Hamburg. This business (Alfred Nobel at Westquarter, Falkirk, and who was & Company) exported a liquid blend of instrumental in helping Nobel establish nitroglycerin and in Scotland the gunpowder called world’s first and “Blasting Oil,” but it Initially marketed as Nobel’s Blasting largest factory for was still extremely his revolutionary Powder, he changed the name to unstable; the factory new explosive – dynamite, from the Greek dýnamis buildings were dynamite. “power.” He patented it, and was on destroyed twice in the road to massive fortune Born in Sweden in explosions. 1833, Nobel was But Alfred was a prolific inventor. tenacious and, carrying out experiments on Dynamite, his most famous invention, a raft anchored on the River Elbe , by 1866 revolutionised the construction of tunnels, he found a way of stabilising nitroglycerine canals, railways and roads as well as the by absorbing it into a siliceous clay which mining industry. Previously, black powder could be shaped into lengths and handled (gunpowder) had been used for mining and fairly safely. This, together with a safety quarrying, but industrialists were looking fuse and detonator (that he also invented), for a high explosive. One discovered by was dynamite. Initially marketed as Nobel’s an Italian chemist in 1847 – nitroglycerine Blasting Powder, he changed the name - was powerful but highly unstable and to dynamite, from the Greek dýnamis dangerous, and Alfred Nobel was one of But what does this Swedish and indeed global story have to do with this area?
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