FOR more than 220 years, dyeing has been big business in Blackley.

ICI was the undefeated world champion in the dyeing industry, but not many people know the trade first started on the River Irk back in 1788.

That was when French emigre Angel Raphael Louis Delaunay set up the first Turkey Red dyeing business in the country. Starting the dyeing industry on the banks of the Irk was a move that was to become the first step towards Blackley becoming the national headquarters of the ICE Organics Division.

After ICI established its world famous plant in Blackley, the town's name became synonymous with the dyeing and chemicals industry.

It was Angel Delauney's eldest son, Louis Bartholomew, who really got the business moving, expanding the works and building the big square chimney that stood for 130 years, until 1960. It was during Bartholomew's leadership when the first organic dyestuff was discovered - Mauveine - revolutionising the dyestuffs industry.

After the French came the Germans. Ivan Levinstein moved to Blackley to start the dyestuffs industry off in England for real. He arrived from Berlin and started a laboratory producing magenta, forming Levinstein and Co in 1866. Levinstein's continued to grow, merging with Read Holliday of Huddersfield in 1919 to form the British Dyestuffs Corporation. This was one of the founding companies that was to form Imperial Chemical Industries - ICI - in 1926.

The Organics Division was formed in 1971 by merging ICI's Dyestuffs Division at Blackley with Scotland's Nobel Division, which was responsible for organic chemical production.

Much of the Organics Division work was carried out in Blackley by 1976, where a staff of 350 technical personnel were employed. In addition application research on the division's products and technical services, in its heyday, was carried out world-wide by 600 staff employed in the laboratory and machine complex in the famous Hexagon Tower, which was completed in 1973.

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