Little is known of this firm, which produced a paraffin coke as an activated charcoal used in the treatment of sewage effluent. The coke was apparantly a by-product of gas production from Kimmeridge Blackstone. It is unclear where this product was manufactured.
Some later histories indicate that the company worked shale at Kimmeridge and was a predecessor of the Kimmeridge Oil & Carbon Co. Ltd., however confirmation of this is required.
SANITARY CARBON.
Some interesting experiments have just been made at Campbell's Sewage Works, Wandsworth Road, with new substance, which practically animal charcoal, and which will probably find extensive use at no distant date in purifying the effluent water of districts that treat their sewage by precipitation; clarifying the waste water of dye works and mines, and the thousand and one other ways that will suggest themselves at once to persons conversant with sanitary matters. It is the product of a company that owns some 1,200 acres of the district on the Devonshire coast where the famous Kimmeridge shale deposit is found. This is deposit which is of undoubted animal origin, and is supposed consist of blubber fish and other forms of marine animal life. However this may be, the shale found to yield more plentifully than cancel coal, and at less expense, excellent carbon, one ton of the shale, after giving off 9,000 cubic feet of gas, leaving 11.6 cwt. of residue, which is the sanitary carbon question. This substance is found to have precisely the same properties and action for all sanitary purposes animal charcoal that costs from £14 to £18 per ton, and the company hope to be able to produce it for one-fourth the price. experiments consisted in treating some of the sewage taken direct from the sewer which runs under the premises and running it through a layer of the sanitary carbon, when the effluent water came out as clear as crystal. A more crucial trial still was made by mixing sewage with a compound of ink dye stuffs solution, forming liquid more intractable than would ever be met with in actual drainage operations; but the result was the same, the water running perfectly clear, with no perceptible odour, and, as certain enthusiasts declared who went the length of tasting it, with no flavour. The results were certainly very striking, and local boards of health and sanitary authorities who are now so much exercised their mind a know what to do with sewage and how to sufficiently clarify effluent water to prevent the pollution of rivers will do well to investigate the statements and claims of the Sanitary Carbon Company.
The Western Daily Press. 3rd June 1876
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SANITARY CONGRESS AT LEAMINGTON. On the reassembling of the Congress yesterday, Mr. BURTON GREEN read, in Section A, a paper "On Sewage Disposal and Sanitary Carbon,'' the latter being a new material manufactured from the refuse after the gas has been abstracted from Kimmeridge shale. The exhausted beds of filters fitted with this material afford a rich manure, the sale of which fully pays for their renewal, so that there is only first cost to be considered. Mr. Green considers it fully equal to animal charcoal, and at less than one-fourth of the cost.
London Evening Standard, 6th October 1877
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In the Matter of the Companies Acts, 1862 and 1867, and of the Sanitary Carbon Company Limited.
NOTICE is hereby given, that a petition for the winding up of the above-named Company by the Court, was, on the 26th day of September, 1877, presented to Her Majesty's High Court of Justice, by Thomas Keene and Benjamin Marsland, both of No. 32, Mark-lane, in the city of London, Gentlemen, creditors of the said Company; and that the said petition is directed to be heard before his Lordship Mr. Justice Lopes, sitting as vacation judge for the Master of the Rolls, on the 11th day of October, 1877; and any creditor or contributory of the said Company desirous to oppose the making of an Order for the winding up of the said Company under the above Acts, should appear at the time of hearing by himself or his counsel for that purpose; and a copy of the petition will be furnished to any creditor or contributory of the said Company requiring the same by the undersigned, on payment of the regulated charge for the same. Abbott, Jenkins and Co., of No. 8, New Inn, Strand, W.C., Solicitors for the Petitioners.
The London Gazette 2nd August 1877
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