William James Chrystal
William James Chrystal was a Scottish chemist and partner in his family’s chemicals business J & J White Chemicals based in Rutherglen.
Antecedents
Chrystal was born in Glasgow on 20th May 1854, son of insurance broker Robert Chrystal and grandson of Dr. William Chrystal (1776-1830), rector of Glasgow Grammar School who died tragically in a boating accident and is remembered with a bust in Glasgow Cathedral.[1] His mother Jean was the daughter of the chemicals firm’s founder John White, and her brothers John and James were also partners from 1840 and 1851 respectively until their deaths in the 1880s.
Education and Career
Chrystal was educated at The Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University. After working in a laboratory in the 1870s he joined J & J White Chemicals as an expert chemist, and after his uncle John died in 1881 he became the technical partner in the business. By this time Chrystal’s cousin John Campbell White, the son of his other uncle James, was also a partner. After the death of James White in 1884, another cousin Hill Hamilton Barrett became the commercial partner. At this time the Shawfield works, mainly producing bichromate of potash, were the largest of their kind in the world and employed over 500 men. Chrystal was credited with improving the manufacturing processes for the products.
He was a fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and the Chemical Society.[2]
Personal interests
In 1898 he bought and reconstructed Auchendennan House (Arden, Argyll) on Loch Lomond. The building was later owned for some years by the Scottish Youth Hostels Association. In 1899 he purchased buildings in central Rutherglen to allow them to be demolished to aid the building of a new church – this is commemorated on a plaque outside the present Rutherglen Old Parish Church on Main Street.
Chrystal was a member of Glasgow Philosophical Society, and was a keen yachter and a member of the Royal Clyde Yacht Club.
He died at Auchendennan on 21st April 1921.