Statue of Sir John Tomlinson Brunner

John Tomlinson Brunner (1842–1919) was born in Liverpool, and at the age of 15 started to work in an office in the city. In 1861 he moved to work in the office of the alkali factory of John Hutchinson in Widnes (then in Lancashire, now in Cheshire) where his older brother Henry was already working. In time John Brunner became the manager of the office. Hutchinson manufactured alkali by the Leblanc process, but this was an inefficient method for producing alkali, and was very damaging to the environment. One of the chemists working in the company was Ludwig Mond, who had been attracted to a different process for making alkali, the ammonia-soda process. By 1871 Mond had determined to build a…

The statue consists of a bronze figure on a pedestal of Shap granite. The figure is about 1.8 m high, standing on a pedestal about 2.2 m in height. The figure is life size, depicting Brunner standing, with a beard, wearing a morning coat, his left thumb in his trouser pocket, and his right arm outstretched. His stance is "the attitude he was wont to assume when addressing a public meeting". The pedestal contains an inscription reading as follows: On the base of the pedestal are the names of the manufacturer of the figure, and of the sculptor.