STREET names often have their origins in local history, and Northwich's Winnington and Castle districts are a prime example.

Ludwig Mond and John Brunner (founders of the Brunner, Mond, and Co.), were responsible for naming at least a dozen streets in Winnington and Castle, and possibly more.

There is a wonderful record in the late 19th century archives of Brunner-Mond, where the gatekeeper at the Winnington site stopped a man with a wheelbarrow full of chemicals. 

When questioned about what he was up to, he replied (in a thick German accent) he wanted to test a new process to make soda ash on a large scale. The gatekeeper bid him to ‘go about his business’.

That young man was Ludwig Mond, a German-Jewish emigree, and the new process he wanted to test had been invented by the Belgian chemist, industrialist and philanthropist, Ernest Solvay (hence Solvay Road in Winnington).

Mond wanted to put into practice an industrial process patented in 1834 to H. G. Dyar and J. Hemming (hence Dyar Terrace and Hemming Street).

Mond significantly improved the process and the product, soda ash, also known as sodium carbonate, was (and still is) used for making glass, soap, cleaning products, washing soda, some foods, paper, and to produce pharmaceutical grade sodium bicarbonate.

Mond was a brilliant scientist as well as an outstanding industrialist. He discovered the compound nickel carbonyl which enabled the extraction of nickel from its ores.

He became a naturalized British subject in 1880 and was elected to the Royal Society in 1891. This was, and still is, one of the highest accolades awarded to British scientists. All this happened in Northwich.  

As the Winnington works grew, so did the need for workers houses and cottages nearby. Much of the Castle estate around Darwin Street was built by Brunner, Mond, and Co. at the turn of the last century.

Darwin Street, part of the Brunner-Mond estate, was named after the famous naturalist and author of On the Origin of Species, a man whom Mond admired enormously.

The development of the theory of natural selection inspired other road names off Darwin Street.  Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (hence Hooker Street) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He discovered the way plants are adapted to their geographical spread and was a close friend of Darwin.  

He was also the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS was an English naturalist who, independently from Darwin, conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection. He sent his 1858 paper on the subject to Darwin for comments and they discussed the theory extensively.

Remarkably, they agreed Darwin should publish first as he had been working on the problem far longer, and had amassed more evidence.  

This sort of gentlemanly behaviour is unlikely in today’s competitive scientific publishing world.

Mond would likely have known Wallace via the Royal Society as it was a small, select club. Hence, we have Wallace Street off Darwin Street in Castle.

George John Romanes FRS was an evolutionary biologist who was the youngest of Darwin’s academic friends, and his views on evolution are historically important.

Mond would, most likely, have known him too, and he gives his name to Romanes Street in Castle.

Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist who specialised in comparative anatomy. Darwin was not well around the time of publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859 ,and could not adequately defend his ideas from a sea of vitriol from opponents.

Huxley became known as ‘Darwin's bulldog’ for his advocacy of natural selection, and he has a road, Huxley Street, named after him off Darwin Street. 

Sir William Henry Flower was a surgeon, museum curator, and anatomist who became a leading authority on the primate brain. He supported Huxley in an important controversy with evolutionary opponents and later became director of the Natural History Museum in London.

We will never know quite how much Mond personally intervened in naming these streets but it’s clear they were all people he admired. Hence, we have Flower Street.

Then there is Herbert Spencer (Spencer Street), credited with coining the term ‘survival of the fittest’ after reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

Finally, there are three streets named after Ludwig Mond’s wife, Frida, and his two sons, Robert and Alfred.

We should not underestimate the scientific legacy of Ludwig Mond. He was one of the greats. 

The Royal Society of Chemistry awards the Ludwig Mond Award in his honour and a stature of him by Édouard Lanteri stands in front of the former Brunner Mond offices in Winnington.

This is flanked by a statue of John Brunner, who also has a street named after him (John Brunner Crescent).

If anyone has more information about other local road names associated with Brunner-Mond, please let me know.

Robert Cernik is emeritus professor of materials engineering at the University of Manchester and a Northwich town councillor.