ABSTRACT
The modern cement industry arose naturally out of the building of large-scale public works—harbours, canals, and railways—in eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century England. John Smeaton was at that time engaged in building the Eddystone lighthouse and found it necessary to have cement capable of setting almost at once under water. In 1822 James Frost, of Finchley, claimed to have invented 'British cement', which he patented, and established cement works at Swanscombe on the Thames. By the late 1830s this firm could sell 'British cement' at one shilling a bushel, compared with 'Roman cement' at eighteenpence. The centenarian I. C. Johnson bridges the gap between the pioneers of the early nineteenth century and the modern industry. Some of Johnson's early 'London Portland' cement was exported to France and used in the Government harbour works at Cherbourg, publicly inaugurated in 1858 in the presence of Queen Victoria.
